JILIN, China (Reuters) – Siberian tigers and Amur leopards are wild animals that are rarely seen, even in pictures. But with infrared cameras, more and more live images of these rare wild beasts are seen by the general public in northeast China’s Jilin Province.
“When we first installed these cameras in 2013, we were just lucky enough to capture the image of tigers once a year. Now we tour these cameras every two months and we get between eight and ten images from every single tour,” said Sun Quan, an official with the Administration Bureau of Wangqing Nature Reserve in Jilin Province.
The latest video footage even showed a heavily-built Siberian tiger stop in front of an infrared camera and gaze into the lens, before strolling on and away.
An Amur leopard is captured on camera clawing around to claim domain integrity.
“In the forested area under the administration of Wangqing Forestry Bureau, there are now three or four Siberian tigers and five or six Amur leopards. These numbers are already considerably big. There are even two wild beast families out there. This is very rare,” said Sun Quan.
