Operation Amba is the codename of a Russian programme [1] to curtail the poaching of Siberian tigers in the Russian Far East. It was described as a strategic defence of the tiger which uses psychological operations as a major element. [2] The programme was concentrated on identifying and neutralizing tiger traders in the Russian Far East [2] and used small anti-poaching teams to roam the taiga and build a network among local population for support and information. [3] Support from the local population and state law enforcement agencies was a key element of the programme. [4] The name "Operation Amba" is derived from "Amba", the name for tiger used by the Udegai people of the Russian Far East. [2]
Russia, officially the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country in Eastern Europe and North Asia. At 17,125,200 square kilometres (6,612,100 sq mi), Russia is by a considerable margin the largest country in the world by area, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area, and the ninth most populous, with about 146.77 million people as of 2019, including Crimea. About 77% of the population live in the western, European part of the country. Russia's capital, Moscow, is one of the largest cities in the world and the second largest city in Europe; other major cities include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares land borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia and North Korea. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the U.S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait. However, Russia recognises two more countries that border it, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which are internationally recognized as parts of Georgia.
Poaching has been defined as the illegal hunting or capturing of wild animals, usually associated with land use rights.
The Siberian tiger is a tiger population in the Far East, particularly the Russian Far East and Northeast China. This population inhabits mainly the Sikhote Alin mountain region in southwest Primorye Province in the Russian Far East. The Siberian tiger once ranged throughout Korea, north China, Russian Far East, and eastern Mongolia. In 2005, there were 331–393 adult and subadult Siberian tigers in this region, with a breeding adult population of about 250 individuals. The population had been stable for more than a decade due to intensive conservation efforts, but partial surveys conducted after 2005 indicate that the Russian tiger population was declining. An initial census held in 2015 indicated that the Siberian tiger population had increased to 480–540 individuals in the Russian Far East, including 100 cubs. This was followed up by a more detailed census which revealed there was a total population of 562 wild Siberian tigers in Russia.
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Operation Amba has been widely successful, having saved cub tigers, made seizures of illegal poaching materials, and raided illegal operations and poaching rings. [3] [5] [6]
Operation Amba is credited for bringing the Siberian tiger back from the brink of extinction in the mid-1990s and helping stabilize the population after years of heavy poaching. [4] [7] [8] Prior to Operation Amba, an estimated 60 to 70 tigers were killed each year by commercial poachers who sold the body parts (skins, bones, etc.) to black market traders. By 1995, the population was thought to have dramatically decreased to just 250-300. By 2001 however, poaching was down to about 8 to 10 tigers per year, and the population had grown to about 400-450 tigers. [6] According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the latest Russian Census reports put the current number to be anywhere between 480 and 520 without including the small numbers of this subspecies present in mainland China. [9]
In biology, extinction is the termination of an organism or of a group of organisms (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point. Because a species' potential range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult, and is usually done retrospectively. This difficulty leads to phenomena such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly "reappears" after a period of apparent absence.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961, working in the field of the wilderness preservation, and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States.
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia and the world's most populous country, with a population of around 1.404 billion. Covering approximately 9,600,000 square kilometers (3,700,000 sq mi), it is the third- or fourth-largest country by total area. Governed by the Communist Party of China, the state exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities, and the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau.
