The arrival of two tigers from Holland in Kazakhstan in the last few days is the latest development in a programme that has been in place for several years. In June this year the Forestry and Wildlife committee of the Kazakh Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources signed a cooperation agreement with the Stichting Leeuw Special Centre for Feline Predators at Landgoed Hoenderdaell Zoo in Holland. The zoo agreed to provided a male and a female Amur tiger, to be relocated to the 415,000-hectare Ile-Balkhash State Nature Reserve in the south-east of the country. Now they have arrived it is likely that these first two tigers will not be released into the wild immediately, but that their offspring will be freed to wander throughout the Reserve.
These tigers are genetically identical to the Turanian tiger that once inhabited large parts of Central Asia including Kazakhstan, the last one of which was seen in the country in 1948. Their ability to withstand the freezing winter conditions of Kazakhstan was the main reason they were chosen.
Stichting Leeuw has the largest shelter for big cats in Europe, including the only hunting simulator in the world, which is used to teach rescued big cats the skills they need to return to the wild.
In July Kazakhstan’s Ecology Ministry signed a further memorandum of cooperation with the World Wide Fund for Nature. As long ago as July 2021 the Kazakhs introduced 61 endangered Bukhara deer into the area where the tigers will be released. This species had been extinct in the region for the last 100 years. Nine of the deer were fitted with satellite collars to allow the reintroduction team to monitor their movements and warn if they strayed too far from the release site. There were once less than 400 of these deer, but they have been brought back from the brink of extinction and are now thought to number more than 1,400 at sites in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Habitat preparation was also started to provide cover for the big cats. WWF has been consulting with local communities to ensure minimal human-tiger conflict and a compensation scheme for loss of livestock.
Siberian Steppes 