By TOSHIYUKI TAKEYA/ Staff Writer
March 3, 2022 at 08:00 JST
Editor's note: This is part of a series of videos offering an up-close perspective on the animal kingdom. A special 360-degree video camera system was set up in zoos and other facilities to show how the animals view their world as they interact.
Also visit our special 360-DEGREE LIVES page (http://t.asahi.com/360lives), where you can watch all the previous videos.
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Inhabiting forested areas along the Amur River that marks the border between China and Russia, the Amur tiger, also known as the Siberian tiger, is the largest cat species in the world.
Large males weigh more than 300 kilograms.
Amur tigers prey on deer, wild boar and even brown bears.
Despite their ferocious nature, Amur tiger cubs look simply adorable and are a welcoming sight for visitors to the Hamamatsu Zoological Gardens in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture.
Four cubs were born in captivity to a couple in February 2021. The large ones grew to weigh around 70 kg in less than a year.
Shortly after a video camera was installed on a handmade wooden platform in their enclosure, an Amur tiger cub approached the device and started licking the lens filter.
The other cubs also came close and toyed with the equipment.
By the end of the day, the wooden platform, which had been used to take footage of many creatures for this video series, was rendered unusable after being chewed by the cubs.
According to zoo attendant Daiki Kawasaki, Amur tigers live as loners outside the mating and parenting seasons.
Unlike most cat species, Amur tigers love to bask in water and can swim.
There used to be nine subspecies of wild tigers, but now there are only six: the Bengal, Amur, South China, Sumatran, Indochinese, and Malayan.
Caspian, Javan and Bali tigers are already thought to have gone extinct, and it is highly likely that the South China tiger also no longer exists.
It is estimated there are only about 600 Amur tigers remaining in the wild.
Their number declined due to ecological destruction, poaching and other reasons, and the species is listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’s Red List.
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Intrigued, Amur tiger cubs approach the video camera installed in their enclosure. (Toshiyuki Takeya)
