Tiger freed by Russian President continues raiding goats in NE China

A Siberian tiger released into the wild by Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly killed another 13 goats in China on Monday night.

The latest feeding follows an attack on the same farm one day ago, which killed two goats and left three missing.

The tiger, named Ustin, attacked a goat farm on Heixiazi Island in Fuyuan county of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, biting and killing 13 goats, local sources told Xinhua on Wednesday.

Guo Yulin, the owner of the farm, is stressed about the tiger and was busy clearing the bodies of dead goats.

When Ustin visited the farm on Sunday, he heard the bark of the neighbor's dog, came out to check, but did not find anything abnormal. In the morning, he found two goats killed and another three missing.

"On Monday night, the tiger came back and did not make any noise. When I opened the goat house in the morning, dead goats were everywhere," Guo recalled.

Experts on Siberian tigers believed Ustin tried to find a breach of the reinforced goat house. The tiger's footprints were around the house and even on its roof.

The local forestry department vowed to compensate Guo for his losses -- a total of 18 goats in the two raids. To avoid further attack, the department encouraged Guo to relocate his goats or further reinforce the farm.

Zhu Shibing, a wildlife protection expert from the Northeast Forestry University, said monitoring data and the attack all indicate that Ustin is in good physical condition and has a large range of activities on Heixiazi Island.

Russian experts rescued five tiger cubs about two years ago. Putin released three of them in early summer. The tracking devices showed that two of them, Kuzya and Ustin, were found to have made their way to China in October.

It is estimated that worldwide there are only 600 Siberian tigers left in the wild, less than 30 of those are in China.