Several towns in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang are searching for a wild tiger – and warning residents – after the large feline injured a villager.
Local media reported that a farmer in Boli county suffered a broken left hand after being bitten by a tiger. He reportedly avoided amputation thanks to hours of surgery.
A video that went viral on Chinese social media this week showed a tiger outside the gate of another resident’s compound in Changtai village on Monday morning. The villager is seen hastily closing the iron gate to avoid the charging tiger.
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Local authorities said it was a Siberian tiger and that they were still trying to track it down.
Since Monday, officials in Boli county and surrounding areas have repeatedly warned residents to “go out in groups” and avoid mountainous areas.
The Heilongjiang Forestry and Grassland Administration, which is responsible for forest and wildlife management, held an emergency meeting on Tuesday and said the tiger’s appearance required “special attention” as Siberian tiger activity was not common in Boli county, according to the agency’s website.
The Siberian tiger is the largest subspecies of tiger and is a protected animal in China.
Siberian tigers are normally found in northeastern China, southeastern Siberia in Russia and some parts of North Korea. They were once critically endangered, but as conservation efforts have ramped up, their activity has increased in China’s northeastern provinces.
Chinese media quoted Zhang Jianxu, a researcher at the Institute of Zoology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as saying that the number of tigers in Heilongjiang had increased in recent years and these tigers included some that had arrived from Russia.
He added that the cat that attacked the villager on Monday might have originated in Russia.
Villagers said they had never seen a tiger in the area, according to local media.
Changtai village is about 100km (62 miles) from the China-Russia border, and about 150km from where another tiger was seen more than three years ago.
In April 2021, a wild Siberian tiger was captured by authorities after it bit a villager. It was later released into a dense forest after a veterinary examination.
The Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park, established in 2021, is about 200km from Changtai village. A park official said there were about 70 Siberian tigers “living stably” there as of the end of last year.
The park’s management bureau said on Tuesday that according to park regulations, the bite victim could make an insurance claim if it was confirmed that a wild Siberian tiger was responsible for the attacks.
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