Eurasian Temperate Forests: The Siberian Tiger's Domain Endangered Species Handbook

Forest

Eurasian Temperate Forests: The Siberian Tiger's Domain

Russia's coniferous forests form the major part of the Eurasian taiga, a mixture of spruce, birch and other evergreens, covering 3 million square miles, two‑thirds of the country's land surface (Sparks 1992). It is the world's largest forest of any type, more than twice the size of the Amazon rainforest (Stewart 1992). Russia's taiga makes up half of the world's total area of coniferous forest and about one-quarter of the entire forested area of the world; the Siberian portion alone is one‑third larger than the whole of the United States (Sparks 1992). The forested land east of the Ural Mountains covers 5 million square miles (Linden 1995). Further south, deciduous trees mix with aspen, birch and alder (Sparks 1992). This entire, vast forest may once have been the domain of the Siberian Tiger (Panthera tigris altaica), as its fossilized bones have been found on Lyakhov Island off the north coast of Siberia (Matthiessen 2000).

The vast expanses of taiga forests were opened up to international logging after the dissolution of the USSRF. By the early 1990s, about 304 million acres, two‑and‑one‑half times the size of France, had been clearcut (Stewart 1992). Each year an additional 12 million acres are logged (Lean and Hinrichsen 1992). Commercial exports of Siberia's logs to the United States have been encouraged by various corporations and the US Department of Commerce. Logging has also been intense in Russia's Far East, an area of great biological diversity, with many resident endangered species.

A nearly pristine and stunningly beautiful part of Russia is the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Far East, jutting into the Pacific Ocean. This area has 29 active volcanoes, wild rivers, hot springs, and beautiful forests. An endemic tree, the Kamchatka Fir (Abies gracilis), grows only on this peninsula. A relict of pre-Ice Age coniferous forests, it is a silvery fir with soft needles, which grows to about 70 feet in height; this once widespread tree is now restricted in range (Sparks 1992). The forests of Kamchatka are being heavily logged (Meulenaer and Vaisman 1996). Another threat is gold mining, as $10 billion worth of gold is thought to lie under the forests and lakes of the Peninsula (Specter 1997).

The Kamchatka Sable (Martes zibellina) is larger than sables in other parts of Russia and was nearly trapped to extinction in the 19th century (Stewart 1992). The Sable's habitat is dominated by Stone Birch (Betula ermani) forests with thick, grassy undergrowth covering the mountain slopes; some of these trees grow to be 600 years old (Stewart 1992). Mountain Ash provide berries which, along with an occasional fish, supplement the Sable's diet of voles (Stewart 1992). Unfortunately, anti-trapping restrictions are not being enforced in Russia's Far East, even in nature reserves. The Kronotsky Nature Reserve, covering 3,860 square miles on the peninsula's east coast, shelters 700 species of tundra, taiga and mountain plants, with a number of unusual endemic plants, including the beautiful Kamchatka Rhododendron (Rhododendron kamchatkensis), which has miniature red blooms (Sparks 1992).

The magnificent Siberian or Amur Tiger is the largest of all wild cats. Only a few hundred years ago, its realm extended from northern Manchuria west to Lake Baikal and south to North Korea and northeastern China (Matthiessen 2000). Its range shrank over the centuries as a result of hunting, persecution, loss of prey species and habitat. Today it is restricted to the extreme southeastern Maritime Region in the Amur River basin east of Manchuria, west of Sakhalin Island (Miquelle et al. 1999). During the 1980s, the Soviet government established a series of reserves for the Tiger, but heavy logging and hunting in the region caused declines in its major prey species, boar and deer. Only 5 percent of the Siberian Tiger's habitat is protected in reserves, according to Evgeny Smirnov, a Russian biologist who studies Tigers (Gourevitch 1995). Moreover, a trade in Tiger bones and other body parts for Traditional Medicine has resulted in the killing, often brutal, of thousands of Tigers throughout their range from India east and south to Indonesia (see Trade chapter).

Siberian Tigers require very large territories. In Sikhote-Alin, their major protected reserve, there are only 10 to 15 resident adults on 400,000 hectares (988,400 acres) (Smirnov and Miquelle 1999). Such large home ranges make them extremely vulnerable to habitat loss, especially the fragmentation of forests by logging. This region’s volcanic peaks rise 5,000 feet from the sea, and forests are crisscrossed by rivers and dotted by lakes. Northern and southern forests meet here, harboring a myriad of tree species. Tall Korean Pines (Pinus koreansis) mingle with oaks, maples, walnuts and birches, and unlike the typical Siberian taiga, shrubs and undergrowth are luxuriant (Stewart 1992). These trees reach heights of nearly 150 feet and produce a great volume of cones, providing food for Wild Boar, Brown Bear, Manchurian Moose, and the endemic Ussurian Asiatic Black Bear (Selenarctos thibetanus ussuricus). Korean Pines have been so heavily logged outside the reserve that the species is now threatened; although it is protected, illegal logging still occurs (Bohan et al. 1996).

A highly unusual type of dark‑barked, slow‑growing birch grows here. Known as the "Iron Birch" (Betula schmidtii), its wood is reputedly so heavy that it sinks in water (Stewart 1992). The Primoryi Province, in which this preserve is located, harbors more than 150 species of trees and shrubs. The meeting of northern and southern forests in this region has resulted in a rich diversity of wildlife. The Ussuri Sika deer (Cervus nippon hortulorum) lives alongside the endangered Goral (Naemorhaedus goral), a goat‑like ungulate native to mountains west to the Himalayas. This is the northern edge of the Leopard's range. The Amur Leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) is a highly endangered subspecies, threatened by both habitat loss and poaching. Lynx and Common Otter are also native. The Dhole (Cuon alpinus), a threatened wild dog native to more southerly regions west to India, may also be native to the Sikhote‑Alin Preserve. This extraordinarily rich diversity of predators and prey is at great risk from overhunting and logging, however.

As many as 340 species of birds have been recorded in Sikhote‑Alin (Stewart 1992), including two endangered waterbirds, the Red-crowned Crane (Grus japonensis) and the Oriental White Stork (Ciconia boyciana) (Collar et al. 1994). A species of ginseng (Panax ginseng) grows in the undergrowth and is valued by the indigenous Udege people and others as an invigorating tonic, making it the "root of life" in their folklore. They believe that the ginseng is guarded by the great Siberian Tiger, and shrines are erected to the Tiger, who is believed to possess near‑magical powers (Stewart 1992).

In 1991, the Hyundai Corporation of South Korea signed a 30‑year contract to cut 500,000 acres of virgin forest on the Pacific slope of the Sikhote‑Alin range (Schafer and Hill 1993). By the end of 1992, the area had been clearcut, and Hyundai began logging in the Bikin River Basin, the last pristine river valley in the region (Schafer and Hill 1993). In the Bikin, a small population of Udege live along the river's forested banks, as they have for hundreds of years, subsisting on local wildlife (Schafer and Hill 1993). These people have opposed the entry of the loggers, filing suit to stop the logging, threatening to shoot at logging trucks and removing markers from trees slated for cutting (Schafer and Hill 1993). Their protests succeeded in stopping the logging, negating the original agreement; Hyundai continues, however, to try to gain access to the Bikin forests (Bohan et al. 1996). This 600,000-acre watershed of the Bikin River is among the last virgin forests in Ussuria (Matthiessen 2000). A plan by the US Weyerhauser Corporation to cut an area of virgin forests the size of Delaware was thwarted by conservationists, and this forest has been declared a nature preserve (Nunn 1996).

Some 10 million acres of Tiger habitat are being clearcut every year, and members of the Siberian Tiger Project, composed of US and Russian biologists, are proposing alternate methods of timber harvest for the region (Quigley and Hornocker 1994). The native deer and boar, upon which the Tiger depends, are being hunted out of many areas by local villagers and professional poachers, who sell their bones and antlers for the Chinese Traditional Medicine trade. In 1995, the Russian government issued a decree "On Saving the Amur Tiger," which called for a specific plan and schedule to implement Tiger protection efforts (Galster 1996). In response, the Russian-American scientific team formulated a plan the same year to protect all existing Tiger habitat with connected reserves, new national parks, multiple use zones and ecological corridors linking them. It would be the world's largest sanctuary, preserving old-growth Korean Pine and designating various zones in this immense area, which extends from north of Khabarovsk south to Vladivostok in a mosaic of connected land (Galster 1996). The plan also called for a new national Tiger census, which was carried out in early 1996 and found more Tigers than previously assumed, an estimated 330 to 371 animals. The proposed protection plan, when combined with the Bikin traditional reserve and a large region a US government agency is helping to protect through multiple use, would preserve about 26 percent of existing habitat of the 156,000 square kilometers used by Siberian Tigers in Russia (Miquelle et al. 1999). The remaining area is either scheduled for logging or agricultural development. The Tiger biologists are urging that all Tiger habitat be included in a national protection plan, as signs of Tigers have been seen in 90 percent of the habitat (Miquelle et al. 1999). Coexistence between Tigers and people is essential. This would mean easing human hunting pressure on its prey, primarily Elk and Wild Boar, which have become rare, a major cause for the Tiger’s need of such large territories. Moreover, Tiger poaching needs to be stopped, and Tigers need access to river valleys, which they use for hunting and movements. Most of these have been taken over for human use.

The Siberian Tiger Project was the subject of a 1995 National Geographic film, "Tigers of the Snow," which included the first filming of a baby Siberian Tiger being weighed and examined by biologists in its wild den. The magnificent scenery of this coastal region was filmed from an aircraft, and areas of clearcutting were in stark contrast to the unbroken forests. The film also noted the sad end to a young Tiger hit by a logging truck. These trucks, loaded with giant tree trunks, thunder through the beautiful valleys. The Siberian Tiger Project is the first research study involving radio-tracking ever undertaken of the Siberian Tiger, and it is revealing new information on its range, behavior and habitat needs. Should the reserves be set aside, Siberian Tigers will be the first race or population of Tigers to become stabilized and perhaps increase at a time when all other populations are in drastic decline.

An eloquent book by Peter Matthiessen (2000), Tigers in the Snow, focuses on this research and the future of all Tigers. Anti-poaching work is helping to stem the decline of both the Tiger and its prey, but until its habitat is secure, this once proud cat, master of its domain, will remain beleaguered and under constant threat. Its world has become a battleground, filled with the screeching of power saws destroying the forests it needs to survive, and the constant threat of poachers. As a keystone species at the top of its food chain, the survival of the Tiger is "the best indicator of the health of the ecosystem as a whole" (Matthiessen 2000). Without the Tiger, the deer and boar will become slow, small and overpopulated, destroying their habitat as they have in Europe, where most predators have been eliminated. This is a crucial turning point for the species, whose tropical populations may not survive long. The Siberian Tiger inhabits a world without high human populations, a still-extensive forest habitat, and is the subject of a strong conservation program. The many people who are dedicated to saving it may succeed. In the words of Maurice Hornocker, an overseer of this research project, "One day it will be culturally unacceptable to kill Tigers anywhere for any reason" (Matthiessen 2000).