Tigers Raised Together, Released Apart Are Now Mates

Siberian tigers inhabit only a tiny pocket of their historical range in Russia's Far East, but a feline love story is raising hopes that the endangered species—numbering no more than 750—could repopulate much of Asia. The story begins in the early 2010s when scientists rescued six orphaned Siberian or Amur tiger cubs from Russia's Sikhote-Alin mountains. They were raised in captivity, with live prey and only minimal human contact, until about 18 months old, when they were released in the Pri-Amur region along Russia's border with China in 2014 in a first-of-its-kind experiment, per the New York Times. Never before had rescued big cats raised in captivity been released back into the wild in the hope of restoring dwindling populations.

As scientists with the Wildlife Conservation Society hoped to distribute the species as widely as possible, two of the six tigers, a male named Boris and a female named Svetlaya, were released 100 miles apart and stayed that way for more than a year. But then Boris began walking "almost in a straight line, to where Svetlaya had made a home," per the Times. He covered more than 120 miles to reach his childhood friend, with whom he shared no relation. Six months after their reunion, Svetlaya welcomed a litter of cubs. Elsewhere, an orphaned female cub named Zolushka, or "Cinderella" in Russian, was returned to the wild where she met a male tiger known to researchers as "Cinderella's prince." They also had a litter of cubs, the first born in that area in 50 years.

"And they lived happily ever after," WCS scientist Dale Miquelle, author of a study published last month in the Journal of Wildlife Management, tells the Times, heralding the success of the decade-long experiment. In all, 13 cubs were raised and released, and only one had to be recaptured. The male, who ventured into China and killed 13 domestic goats in a single night, was put in a captive breeding program. The dozen other tigers showed they could hunt and survive as well as wild tigers, according to the study. Researchers hope to see hundreds more tigers return to the Russia-China border area. But the study also provides "a pathway for the restoration of tigers in many other parts of Asia where they have been lost," says study author Viatcheslav V. Rozhnov, per WCS. (More tigers stories.)