The incident happened during a collective hunt for ungulates, during which the Amur tiger was in the "ring" of hunters. Shots of people provoked a predator to attack. As a result of the incident, one of them was taken to hospital.
On the afternoon of January 5, in the hunting farm “Nezhinskoe” (Nadezhda district of the Primorsky Krai) between the Bolshaya and Malaya Kedrovka rivers, a group of people hunted ungulates in a driven way. Part of the hunters went to the "rooms", as if lined up, and the other part with a loud cry went to meet them, trying to catch the animals at the shooters. As it turned out, inside the resulting "pen", the Amur tiger, too, was already hunting for and got the boar, which he was going to eat. Hearing the noise that people made, the predator decided to leave the place, leaving his prey. He began to move toward the river Big Kedrovka, trying to get away from the "beaters", and stopped the line of "shooters", where he was noticed by one of the hunters. Seeing the tiger at close range, he shot that he was prompted to commit such an act is unknown. Because of the shot, the tiger abruptly changed its direction of movement and attacked the gunman, causing damage to the head and neck of the person. After which the predator hastily left the scene.
Such data were collected by the task force of the Primorye Krai Hunting Surveillance Service to resolve conflict situations with large predators that arrived at the scene of the attack. On January 6, inspectors surveyed the area where the hunt was conducted, and found traces of human blood and cartridge cases from firearms.
It was also established that already at night the tiger returned to the scene of the incident and took away his mined boar. The width of the tiger's heel is 10 cm, which indicates that this is most likely a female, but it was not possible to reliably establish the floor, because there is not enough snow in this place, and the one that is is covered with a strong “crust”.
Apparently, the tiger was not injured.
“Judging by the tracks, a collective hunt is held in this place every three to four days. A tiger on this site - already a week. It turns out that he is disturbed every time, and in this case his nerves could not stand it. The shot that provoked the tiger was fatal. Without it, the tiger would have left, despite the fact that the tiger had the right to protect its prey,” commented Andrei Orel, an inspector at the Department of Hunting Surveillance in the Primorsky Krai.
In the area where the hunter was attacked, primary security measures are being taken. So, the head of the hunting farm “Nezhinskoe” promised that for the time being this site would be banned for hunting. Inspectors continue to investigate the situation and monitor the behavior of the tiger.
“This is the second such case during the winter: like the first, it has not yet received a legal assessment. This once again proves the low level of training of hunters. There are also questions about how the "pen" hunting in this hunting economy. Recall that the tiger is a strong enough predator that can easily kill a person. In this case, the tiger just decided to scare, of course, even in this case, the man received serious damage. Primary data speak in favor of the version that the tiger was provoked to attack, but we will wait for the final results of the investigation. There is a common phrase that “shooting at tigers is dangerous for your health” - this should always be remembered,” commented Sergey Aramilev, director of the Primorsky branch of the Amur Tiger Center.
Recall that a similar incident occurred at the end of November 2015. Then one of the participants in the collective hunt was also attacked by a tiger and was taken to hospital. The tiger suffered minor damage.