Amur tiger cub loses fight for life

Vets failed in a ten-day attempt to save a badly injured Siberian tiger whose plight was reported around the world after she was shot. The animal was the second to be gunned down in recent weeks. 

Amur tigers are an endangered species and the loss is a blow to conservation efforts. 

Vets sought to repair her shattered legs by using pins and plates but said the tiger faced a battle of life and death after being shot by a local farmer in Primoskiy region.

The man who shot the cub with an illegally-held shotgun was identified as Roman Makovey, 62, who has a smallholding close to where he came across the tiger. 

He claimed he shot because he believed the tiger was preparing to attack him as he went on the trail of wild boar damaging his field of soybean, oats, and pumpkin. 

'Seven meters from me was a tigress already on her hind legs, ready to jump and attack,' he said. 'I  fired two shots, but was afraid that I did not finished it off. It could attack, so I ran away.'

He claimed: 'There was a choice - it could kill me or I defend myself.' He denied using his unregistered weapon to hunt for the Amur tiger.

Police say he had two registered guns. 'With this gun it is difficult to kill a tiger. If this is what I wanted to do, I would have used another rifle.'

The investigation is continuing, as is the search for the tiger's mother, which should have been in the same area as the cub - but so far there is no trace. A fear is that hunters killed the mother. 

Sergei Aramilev, director of the Primorye branch of the Amur Tiger Centre said: 'Despite all our efforts, the tiger could not survive. For all of us it is a great loss.' Given the injuries it would have taken a 'miracle', he said. 

'Traces of mother tigress have not yet been found. This could be as a result of prolonged rains, which wash out (paw) marks on the dirt. Or perhaps it means that  something is wrong.'

As for the cub, he said: 'The tigress did not suffer. All this time she was on very strong painkillers. Today we had planned X-ray examination of the tigress. We wanted to check the bones, and internal organs, but in the morning she died peacefully.'

Some 500 Amur tigers now living in the wild. Recently another cub was shot in Khabarovk region.