Wild tigers may be reintroduced to Kazakhstan’s biosphere by 2025

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Nur-Sultan, The Gulf Observer: Wild tigers may be reintroduced to Kazakhstan’s biosphere as early as 2025, said Olzhabek Kholov, the lead expert of the forestry.
The government of Kazakhstan and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) signed a memorandum in 2017 to implement a project aimed at reviving the wildlife population of Turanian tigers, also known as the Caspian tigers in the Pre-Balkhash region.
Famous for its endurance and massive size which could reach up to 2.24 meters in length and a body weight of up to 240 kilograms, the Turanian tiger has been extinct since the 1970s. They inhabited areas from Türkiye to western China, including the Caucasus, Iran, and Central Asia.
In Kazakhstan, the tigers once dwelled along the sides of Balkhash Lake and the coast of the Amu Darya River.
According to the WWF, tigers went extinct because of the loss of quality habitat, loss of the prey base and direct poaching. After the Soviet government allowed the plowing of the most fertile floodplains for cotton fields, the population of ungulates, the basis of the tiger’s diet, around the area steadily went down. At the end of the 19th century, tigers were also killed to protect landowners.
The program, designed under a 35 year plan, includes three stages: preparation of the habitat, release of the animals into the wild and active monitoring of the program’s success.
Upon completion of the first stage of the program, it is expected that the ecosystem will be able to support a viable tiger population in the Ile-Balkhash State Nature Reserve, a dedicated specially protected natural area.
The expert said that in the last five years, an extensive amount of work was done to protect the territory and increase the number of wild boar and roe deer.
“For example, last year in July, 61 Bukhara deer were released, so today there are more than 150 animals in the reserve,” said Kholov. “It is planned that by 2025 the populations of wild boar, roe deer, gazelles, and kulans will be formed to provide approximately 25-30 ungulates per 1,000 hectares, which is over 3,500 animals in the area. Considering that one tiger needs around 60 large ungulates per year, food will be provided with a large supply.”