‘We’ve been living in fear, dreading nightfall’ In Russia’s Far East, villagers are asking Putin and soldiers fighting in Ukraine to save them from tigers
In Russia’s Far East, increasingly bold tigers have been venturing into villages, killing dogs and sometimes even attacking people, Sibir.Realii reports. In January, desperate residents petitioned Vladimir Putin for protection. Even soldiers on the front lines in Ukraine have recorded appeals. But experts warn that solving the problem will take years — decades of unchecked logging, poaching, and the collapse of forestry oversight have wiped out much of the tigers’ natural prey, pushing them closer to human settlements in search of food. Meduza shares a summary of the story in English.
Last month, residents of Primorsky, a village in Primorsky Krai in Russia’s Far East, recorded a video appeal to the governor, Oleg Kozhemyako, and gathered signatures for a petition to Vladimir Putin, calling for action after months of increasingly frequent tiger attacks.
The incidents began in May 2024, when a tiger killed a dog in a courtyard on the village’s edge. In the fall and winter, encounters escalated. On December 12, a tiger attacked another dog near a water pumping station. On December 24, two more dogs were killed in different parts of the village — both in a single night. Villagers say they’ve repeatedly reached out to the authorities for help, but nothing has changed.
Local social media pages are now flooded with daily reports of tiger sightings. In early February, in the nearby village of Filippovka, a tiger entered a yard and dragged a husky into the forest. In Andreyevka, another village, a tiger that couldn’t break a dog’s chain killed the pet on the spot.
“People are really scared,” says Elina, a resident of Primorsky. “Predators are unpredictable, and right now, they’re constantly hungry because their usual prey is gone. We used to have plenty of wild boars, but their numbers have dropped over the past two years.”
Residents say they now avoid leaving their homes after dark. “Those with gun permits are ready to shoot if there’s no other choice,” says Elina. “And those without permits? They’ll shoot, too, if they have to. These are remote places, and people want to protect themselves. But what do the authorities say? They tell us to ‘stay strong.’”
This winter, officials captured a “problem tiger” near Barabash, another village in the region. The tiger was deemed healthy, so they relocated it further north and released it a few days later. “People are still worried that another tiger will just take its place,” says Irina, who lives in Barabash. “Of course, we’re afraid it could attack a person. At night, we lock up all our animals wherever we can.”
Irina’s commute to work takes her through a forested area near a river — a route many schoolchildren also take. “Even in daylight, it’s terrifying. […] And now there’s another tiger in Filippovka. They captured one on January 9, but last week, a new one appeared, and it’s roaming the village, taking dogs.”
Residents of Andreyevka have also gathered signatures for a petition to regional officials. “For years, we’ve been living in fear, dreading nightfall. The problem is getting worse — tiger sightings in our village are more frequent than ever. The capture process is painfully slow, and it’s unclear whether those responsible for capturing them even want to,” the petition reads.
Irina says it’s hard to tell how well authorities are handling the crisis. “Whenever we find tracks or a tiger kills a dog, people call the police, hunting inspectors, or the nature reserve staff. They come, record the tracks, and file reports. Every incident is documented, but as always, capturing a tiger requires piles of paperwork and a wait for approval from Moscow.”
In Krasnyi Yar, a remote village in northern Primorsky Krai, locals have also been pleading with authorities for help. In January, two residents posted video appeals about frequent tiger attacks on dogs — one recorded by Alexander Pionka, the other by his son Dmitry Pionka, who spoke from the front lines of the war in Ukraine.
For two months, tigers have been killing dogs in the village, and “local officials and law enforcement are ignoring it,” Dmitry Pionka said in his video. According to one Krasnyi Yar resident, “He was asked to record it. He’s at the front, so they’ll have to listen to him.”
But soon after, Alexander’s wife, Oksana Pionka, appeared in a video seemingly walking back her family’s claims. In a clip published by Bikin National Park, she said her husband was in the hospital and “not fully aware of the situation.” She praised local officials and conservation groups while blaming residents for failing to properly care for their dogs.
“There are no more wild boars around the village — that’s the tiger’s main food source,” she said. “But the village is full of stray dogs, and of course, that attracts tigers. People need to be more responsible with their pets and with nature.”
‘The Ussuri Taiga is disappearing’
At an expert hearing in the State Duma in January, officials essentially admitted that Russia has no effective strategy for dealing with aggressive tigers. Many blamed an outbreak of African swine fever in 2019, which wiped out an estimated 75 percent of the wild boar population. Scientists, however, point to a deeper problem: unchecked logging, destruction of Siberian pine forests, and overhunting of the animals that sustain the Amur tiger population.
According to Pavel Krestov, director of the Vladivostok Botanical Garden, tigers primarily live in the Sikhote-Alin mountain range, which spans Primorsky Krai and Khabarovsk Krai. “Over the past 30 years, forest fragmentation in the Sikhote-Alin has increased by 50 percent. The Ussuri Taiga is disappearing before our eyes,” he said.
The issue is compounded by both legal and illegal hunting. Authorities regulate the hunting of red deer and roe deer, but poaching remains widespread. “In the 1980s and 1990s, most hunting operations focused on fur trapping, but now they’re all about meat,” said biologist Viktor Lukarevsky during the hearing. “That has inevitably reduced the Amur tiger’s prey base. And forest mismanagement has wiped out the food sources prey rely on. The so-called protected areas — officially designated conservation zones — are a joke. In fact, tigers may be safer outside these zones, because inside them, large-scale logging is rampant.”
“The tiger isn’t leaving its traditional habitat because its population is booming,” Lukarevsky added. “It’s leaving because there’s nothing left to eat.”
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Despite these concerns, officials in Primorsky Krai insist there is no food shortage for tigers. In summer 2024, authorities estimated the regional ungulate population at 155,000. Conservationists dispute that claim, noting that in Khabarovsk Krai, deer and boar are now scarce.
“I walked 950 meters through Birsky Reserve in December to set up a camera trap,” Lukarevsky said. “When I returned three months later, my ski trail had been crossed by just one red deer. And this is in Birsky Reserve! Wild boars have all but disappeared. I don’t know where they get their official numbers from, but in six months of monitoring, we recorded just two tiny herds — one with three animals, the other with five.”
Meanwhile, the export of Siberian pine nuts, a key food source for the tigers’ prey, continues unchecked. In 2024 alone, Russia exported 2.8 million kilograms of pine nuts, stripping the forests of yet another critical resource. Experts say the lack of regulation stems from the dismantling of Russia’s forestry oversight agencies in the 2000s.
Even basic monitoring efforts are underfunded. Russia’s entire annual budget for tracking tiger movements, setting up deterrent devices, and other conservation work is just 9 million rubles (about $94,000). According to one expert, that number should be 10 to 15 times higher. Officials in Primorsky Krai have promised to expand the regional hunting inspection service by hiring 49 additional officers, bringing the total to 100 in 2025.
‘The authorities have no real solution’
The number of Amur tigers in Russia remains a subject of debate among scientists. In the 2000s, Vladimir Putin took a reported interest in the species’ decline, and in 2010, he set a 12-year goal to double its population. In 2022, he announced that the country’s tiger population had reached 750, a figure that appeared to meet his directive.
However, many biologists question the reliability of these numbers. Before 2013, Amur tigers were counted using tracks left in the snow, with scientific coordinators overseeing each survey area. But after the Amur Tiger Center, a state-backed conservation program, took over the count in 2014, population estimates began to rise, and the methodology changed. The surveys, once conducted annually, were reduced to every five years, and in 2015, when an academic at the Russian Academy of Sciences requested access to the data and methodology, the authorities refused.
Between 2018 and 2021, the number of tigers in Bikin National Park, managed by the Amur Tiger Center, allegedly grew from 30–40 to 70. But biologists say this is biologically improbable. Tigers take years to reach reproductive maturity, and doubling their numbers in just three years defies scientific understanding of the species’ growth rate.
Whether or not the population figures are accurate, human-tiger conflicts are becoming more frequent. This winter is shaping up to be one of the worst for such encounters. In Khabarovsk Krai, 184 incidents were reported in less than two months — compared to 176 for all of last winter and 204 the year before.
“So far, the authorities have no real solution to this problem,” said a conservation expert who requested anonymity. “To prevent future conflicts, we need to reform hunting regulations, restore meaningful oversight of forestry, curb logging, and complete the creation of Pompeyevsky National Park in the Jewish Autonomous Region, which is meant to protect these predators. That’s multiple large-scale reforms. We don’t know when they will happen.”
He noted that officials have “more pressing” issues right now. “Both the Amur tiger and local residents have become hostages of the situation. And the conflicts will continue.”
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