7/31/2019 Russian Tiger Team

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Take a six hour flight to Moscow and you arenot even half way there. Across the city youlink up for an internal flight and nine hourslater you arrive in Vladivostok on Russias mosteastern coast. Flanked by China and with Japana ferry ride across the sea, its a very long wayfrom anywhere; a long way from the relativesophistication of Moscow; a long way from the

comfort of home. This is the Russian Far East,a land of vast distances, terrible roads, militaryand police checkpoints, grey and dilapidated

towns and villages, massive unemployment,unimaginable corruption, tens of thousands ofillegal guns and lawlessness. It is a very difficultplace to live and work.

This is a hugely tough environment, says aspokesman for DSWF (the David Shepherd

Wildlife Foundation), a UK-based charitydedicated to saving the tiger in the wild and inRussia supporting NGO The Phoenix Fund toprotect the last 450 Amur tigers on the planet.The stakes are high, a tiger skin can fetch over35,000 on the black market, its bones andbody parts as much again. With demand stillstrong for tiger parts in Far Eastern markets

the wild tiger is in serious trouble. Withoutaction, extinction is a very real possibility.

Wildlife artist and founder of DSWF, DavidShepherd CBE, is not alone in his passionatedeclaration that he will not let this happen. InMay this year, to mark his 80th birthday, helaunched TigerTime, a campaign to raise globalawareness of the issues facing the worldsmost iconic and loved big cat. Along withprojects in Thailand and India, DSWF worksclosely with the Russian team to supportcritical anti-poaching activities and educationprogrammes.

I take my hat off to the men and women wesupport in the field, they are on the frontline of

conservation, saysDavid Shepherd,who does notuse the termfrontline lightly.The rangers in

the anti-poachingteams live with a

very real fear ofreprisal from thepoaching gangs

they encounter,but you cannot fail

to be impressed byall of them. Despitebeing poorly paidand working ina very difficultand dangerousenvironment theyare well-trained,cheerful, enthusiastic, energetic and devoted

to their jobs.

The team are occasionally accompanied by thesecret police who are armed with everythingfrom knives to Kalashnikovs, and the rangers

themselves have knives, pistols and rifles. Theyare attacked by poachers with knives, axesand guns on a regular basis (guns were firedon two occasions when the DSWF team lastvisited) and they and their families are regularly

intimidated. Therangers may livein Vladivostokyet they patrol

some 600 milesaway specifically

to cut down onopportunities forcriminal poachinggangs to harass

their families.This means longperiods away fromhome (typically a

two-week patrolfollowed by afew days off) andmany nights arespent sleepingrough in the forest.To make thingsworse, a surprising

number of the people they have to apprehendare police officers and politicians. Only trulydedicated people cope with a job like this.

Add the weather to the mix and this is not ajob for the faint hearted. Winters in the RussianFar East are harsh, sub-zero temperaturesand metres of deep snow make it a cruel

environment for the animals that live thereincluding the last Amur tigers on earth. Preyis hard to find and the fabulously thick orangecoat of the largest cat on the planet standsout like a beacon against the deep whitesnow. Hunters are everywhere looking foropportunities that the deep snow brings; deer

trapped in snow drifts make easy pickings andtigers hungry for food are a welcome bonus.

Protecting these precious big cats in thesouthwest of Primorsky region - an area of over110,000 acres - are three immensely braverangers: Eugeny Stoma, Andrey Onishenkoand Alexander Ermakov. Think of them thisChristmas when you are warm and safe and

they are tackling armed poaching gangs to savethe Amur tiger and its prey.

In the last ten months these men have walked810km on foot patrols, driven 6330km onvehicle patrols, confiscated nine firearms anddetained 37 poachers.

This is theirChristmas Day The team rise long before daybreak to travel80km on a dirt road to get to the remotestpart of the nature reserve - an area loved bypoachers. With the temperature at -26 Ckeeping themselves warm is critical. They havecoffee, oatmeal, bread and butter. They wearseveral layers of clothes and take hot coffee in

thermoses. Even with their snowmobiles it will

take them three hours to reach the remotearea of the reserve.

There has been heavy snowfall, the snowdepth is up to 50cm which hinders deer in

their efforts to move and find food. On theirway, the rangers put hay in special sheds thatprotect it from being covered with fresh snowand allows the deer to feed offering a lifelinenot only to the grazers but the rare tigers thatdepend on them for food.

Its sunny but freezing the type of beautifulwinter wonderland scene depicted on a

thousand Christmas cards in homes all overBritain. When the road gets impassable therangers leave their snowmobiles and continue

the patrol on foot. On average they will walk50km a month. Walking in a knee-high snow

they notice the tracks of six people. For morethan three hours the rangers follow - then agunshot rings out. Trying not to frighten thepoachers, the team silently approaches themen who are stripping down two freshly shotdeer.

When the hunters spot them a struggleensues but the team are strong, accustomed

to these encounters and all six poachers arearrested for illegal hunting and handed over topolice officers. A few days later a criminal caseunder article 258 of t he Criminal Code of theRussian Federation illegal hunting in a wildliferefuge will convict them.

It was a successful patrol and a long day. Theteam doesnt get back to their work stationuntil midnight where they will spend a brief,cold night before facing another day and a newstruggle.

A rangers lifeWith the low salaries and high risk while onduty its hard to understand what motivates

these men but most rangers are pass ionateabout protecting the unique biological diversityof their native land and punishing those whowould kill a tiger.

My lifestyle might sound like hell to citydwellers but, for me, being able to spend the

whole day in the forest is rewarding. Yes, I getcold, tired, frightened sometimes, but doing

the job that satisfies me morally and being soclose to nature allows me to live in peace withmyself. I want my great-grandchildren to livein a world where Amur tigers still exist in thewild, says Andrey Onishenko.

In addition to their daily patrols, the teamconducts between three and six night patrolsa month, lays ambushes and waits for poachersfor many hours. Once, to get the necessaryevidence, rangers had to dive into a freezingriver to retrieve a gun that one hunter had

tried to get rid of.

Being a forest ranger is hard. Their living isvery different from the people who work

in warm offices on scheduled hours, saysVictoria Molchanova, conservation projectscoordinator at the DSWF supported PhoenixFund. To be successful in their work theyneed to maintain an element of surprise;which means they patrol during holidays, atweekends and at night, when it rains, when itsnows, when storms break out, because thatis when the poachers think no one will catch

them. I am very grateful to these brave anddevoted people who sacrifice their comfortand risk their lives for the Amur tiger.Supporting these teams is vitally important

to the survival of the tiger in the wild, adds

David Shepherd. I am delighted that DSWFcontributes to this great effort; everyone can.Its our supporters who make the rangerswork possible and the survival of the tiger areality.

How you can supportthe rangersThey need jeeps, snowmobiles, winter

tents, winter sleeping bags, warm outfits andcomfortable tracking boots, thermoses, goodcommunication means like radio-stationsand satellite phones and bigger salaries!Your donations to TigerTime will help makea difference to these amazing men as theydedicate their lives to saving the Amur tiger.

You can donate online at www.tigertime.infoor through DSWF at www.davidshepherd.org

Join the patrol teamAre you brave enough to join the team? Anew eco-tourism programme run by thePhoenix Fund (one of TigerTimes benefici-aries) gives you the chance to experiencewinter anti-poaching patrols in Amur tigerhabitat and contribute to the ongoing protec-

tion of this amazing cat. If you are interestedin finding out more please email: dswf@davidshepherd.org

About the Amur tigerFormerly called the Siberian tiger, the Amur

tiger is the largest big cat on the planet. Poachingand habitat destruction led to its numbersplummeting in the 1980s. Reacting to the crisis,a coalition of conservationists including DSWF,worked to bring the population back from thebrink. There are now estimated to be between350 450 Amur tigers in the wild. It can growup to 3 metres in length from its nose to the

tip of its tail. It lives in the vast taiga forestsof the Russian Far East and is threatened notonly by poachers but by the illegal logging thatbrings humans into its habitat.

Once, the tiger ranged widely throughout theRussian Far East and across the border intoChina. But, Chairman Maos declaration in

the 1950s that the tiger was a pest led to the

widespread slaughter of the big cat. Today onlyabout 20 tigers are thought to survive in Chinaalong its border with Russia a population thatis not independently viable without contactwith the Russian population.

A long way from home:

Protecting the last Amur tigers in the Russian Far East

My lifestyle might sound like hell to citydwellers but, for me, being so close to

nature allows me to live in peacewith myself. I want my great-grandchildren to live in a world whereAmur tigers still exist in the wild,

says Andrey Onishenko.