Threatened by the rapid reduction and degradation of the habitats, the Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) becomes one of the most endangered species of the world. During the past century, the tiger habitat experienced a drastic, constant shrink to less than 5% of its historical distribution area. The tigers are currently restricted in the Russian’s southern far-east region and a few isolated patches along the Sino-Russian bounder area and the northeastern China. We combined field survey, historical records, as well as the remotely sensed information and conducted habitat analyses to illustrate 1) the historical habitat change, and 2) the recent changes of the existing habitats during the past decades. We also modeled trends with several scenarios to predict the habitat dynamics in the near future.

Results/Conclusions

Our results demonstrated that: 1) During the past century, the tiger habitats in Russian’s far-east had been maintain relatively well thought anthropogenic degradation accelerated during the recent decades, while in the northeastern China, the drastic habitat loss started in the 1950’s and continued until 1990’s when the conservation policy was implemented. This was largely due to large scale land-use change, rapid human population increase that pushed the tiger population in China to the brink of extinction. 2) Current habitats in Russian have being constantly deteriorated and fragmented that high quality habitats are continuously shrinking, while in China, the potential habitats are improving indicated by fast recovery of vegetation but still too fragmented to support stable tiger populations. Our model simulations predicted that 1) the rate of tiger population decrease depends on the intensity of the habitat destruction and fragmentation; 2) considering global change effects, the frequency and intensity of hazardous events (fire, blizzard etc.) will increase and will have devastative effects on the tiger populations. The urgent measures to preserve the tiger should: 1) halt any activity that destruct current habitats; 2) connect current isolated tiger habitats, and preserve prey populations; 2) speed potential habitat recovery in China.