“The Handbook for Trackers” has been released in advance of the upcoming Tiger Census in Russia. Preparations for the full-range Amur tiger survey in the Russian Far East have begun. At this stage, the census coordinators are working to ensure that trackers refresh their skills in employing consistent and unified measurement of tiger tracks and correctly filling out their “tracker’s diary”.

The nature documentary production group, “Zov Taigi,” with support of WWF and The Amur Tiger Centre, have released an educational film called “The Handbook for Trackers” to help train forest animal trackers. The project is supervised by the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in cooperation with the Amur Tiger Center and WWF Russia.

"The video handbook has turned instructions for trackers into lively and interesting video materials" - Pavel Fomenko - Biodiversity conservation program coordinator, WWF Russia Amur Branch

A full range tiger survey is a rare event, so it is important for all staff to be trained to consistently measure tiger tracks while filling in the collected data into a special diary. This ensures the recording of comparable data from a number of different persons.

It is physically impossible for a coordinator to supervise the staff working in the field and to constantly remind them the adopted standards of collecting and recording data, therefore, the video guidebook will be a great support for the trackers.

The documentary is primarily oriented for survey participants from Amurskaya and Evreiskaya Provinces, where the full range Amur tiger survey will be held for the first time. This educational documentary will be later translated into Chinese, to help Chinese tiger experts. The Russian version of the educational film ‘The Handbook for trackers’ can be viewed on youtube here. An English translation will be coming soon.