Rare Russian tiger killed in traffic accident

Rare Russian tiger killed in traffic accident

20 Apr, 02:22 PM

A wild tiger was killed by a car in the Russian Far East on Monday morning, the press service of the Russian branch of the WWF has reported. A young tigress was found wounded on a highway in the Primorye Region. Specialists from the local wildlife reserve arrived on the scene and established that the animal suffered severe injuries of the spine and other internal organs and had to be put down.

The tracks found on the site of the accident showed that the animal had been run over by a truck or a large SUV. Sergei Aramilev, a coordinator with the local branch of the World Wildlife Fund said that forensic tests showed that the driver hit the tigress on purpose. “What this driver did can be only called a crime,” the activist told reporters and added that his colleagues had filed in a report to the local police station demanding an official investigation.

The Amur Tiger, living in Russia and China, is the largest tiger subspecies. These tigers are very rare and many experts fear that they may soon become extinct. However, the Siberian Tiger Project launched in 1992 has led to a slow increase in the tiger population.

http://www.mosnews.com/society/2009/04/20/tiger/

http://bigcatrescue.org