Another Feline Incursion From Russia Into China

Beijing: The two dead goats in a farm building in northeast China each had a hole in its head the size of a human finger. Their skulls had been crushed. Three other goats were missing.

There was only one animal in the vicinity known to possess such powerful jaws: Ustin, a Siberian tiger released last June by President Vladimir Putin of Russia in the country's far east.

Chinese officials said this month that Ustin had crossed into frigid northeastern China, following in the footsteps of Kuzya, one in a group of three tigers released in May by Putin, who is known to be both an animal lover and a prolific hunter.

Though Russia has been widely criticized by other countries this year for hostile cross-border incursions to its west, it is the violent actions of Ustin in the east that appear to have taken Chinese farmers by surprise.

"Our monitoring data and this attack all tell that Ustin is in good physical condition, and has a large range of activities on Heixiazi Island," Zhu Shibing, a wildlife protection expert from the Northeast Forestry University, said in a report on the goat attacks Tuesday by Xinhua, the state news agency.

With the help of tracking devices worn by the tigers, Russian and Chinese officials have been following the two animals, which swam across the Amur River into China. Russian officials are concerned that the tigers might fall prey to poachers, given the prices that rare-animal parts fetch in black markets here. Many Chinese desire tigers' fur and body parts that can be used in traditional medicine.

Zhu said villagers should not try to get too close to Ustin or throw food to him if they spot him.
Experts have been able to pinpoint Ustin as the main suspect in the goat killings because of footprints and other traces left near the goat house, he said.

The attacks took place Sunday night at a farm on Heixiazi Island of Fuyuan County in Heilongjiang province, south of Siberia, Xinhua reported. The news agency said that its own correspondents had seen the dead goats.

The news of a feline intrusion onto Chinese soil first came in October, after Russian officials notified the Chinese that 23-month-old Kuzya had crossed the Amur at a point 300 miles from where Putin had released him. Hong Lei, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a statement that the Chinese would "make joint efforts with the Russian side to carry out protection of wild Siberian tigers which travel back and forth between China and Russia."

Fewer than two dozen tigers remain in China. In Russia, Putin has put his muscle behind a tiger recovery effort. Wildlife officials estimate that there are now 370 to 450 Siberian tigers in the Russian Far East.

In mid-November, officials determined that Ustin was on Bolshoi Ussuriysky Island, the Russian name for Heixiazi Island, which sits at the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri rivers and is split between Russian and Chinese territory, according to Tass, the Russian state news agency. At the time, Viktor Serdyuk, a Russian environmental official, told Tass that Ustin could turn back. But the goat carcasses discovered Sunday showed that Ustin chose to prowl farther into China.

Putin visited Beijing this month during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. It is unclear whether he and Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, discussed the tigers. Putin drew the attention of many Chinese when he draped a blanket over the shoulders of Xi's wife, Peng Liyuan, at a televised dinner that Xi was hosting in the Olympic Park. Censors ordered Chinese websites to delete videos showing Putin's move, and people asked whether another Russian predator had ventured onto Chinese soil.