Saving A Tiger Named Cinderella

A starving orphaned cub grew up to roam free. Now she’s a mom!

- Emily Johnsen

On an icy day in February 2012, two hunters in eastern Russia discovered a limp bundle of striped fur lying in the snow. It was a tiger cub! The orphan hadn’t eaten in days, and the tip of her tail was black from frostbite.

“She was weak enough for the hunters just to pick her up,” recalls Dr. Dale Miquelle, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Russia Program. “A healthy tiger cub, even a three-month-old one, would give you reason to pause before you stuck your hand too close to its teeth and claws. This cub had no fight left in her.”

The hunters wrapped the cub in a coat and delivered her to a local wildlife inspector, Andrey Oryol. Over the following weeks, Oryol nursed the orphaned cub back to health. But now he had a new problem: what could he do with a feisty three-month-old tiger?

The Amur Tiger’s New Hope

The cub was an Amur (AH-moor) tiger. They are also called Siberian tigers, though scientists prefer the name

Amur. “Technically, tigers do not live in Siberia, but the Russian Far East,” explains Dr. Miquelle. He is an American biologist and has studied Amur tigers in Russia for nearly 25 years.