The Amur tiger has known stirring times. At the start of the twentiest century, when Russia just lost the war against Japan, there was anarchy in the region. When the communists took over this was not an improvement. Reserves were used by party bosses to organise big tiger hunts. Outside the reserves the tigers had no protection whatsoever. At the start of the  Second World War less than 50 tigers remained. At the eleventh hour the situation changed for the better. In 1947 Russia became the first country in the world where the tiger was granted full protection. Hunting of important prey, like boar and deer, became restricted by annual quota based on the results of population counts. Moreover, the war had decreased the tigers only enemy: young Russian men. Vladivostok became a strategic city during the cold war when the relations with China and NATO were tense.

All activities in the area were strictly regulated and even Russians weren't allowed to travel to Vladivostok without special permits. Along the border with China a prohibited and at many places fenced off zone of approximately ten kilometers was established. Poaching of tigers was relatively rare, because there was no market for skins and other tiger products, although hunters often killed this “competitor” when an opportunity presented itself. Thanks to this relatively favourable situation, the Amur tiger made a unique and remarkeble come back at a time when numbers in all other parts of the tiger’s wide range in Asia were declining dramatically. Probably as many as 500 tigers roamed the forests of the Russian Far East at the end of the eighties. In the early nineties a poaching epedemic broke out when the Soviet Union collapsed and the borders with neighbouring Asian countries, where tiger body parts are used in medicines, opened up. At present Amur tiger numbers in Russia are stable and estimated at close to 450 individuals. This is still the largest unbroken tiger population in the world.