Kazakhstan’s last tigers disappeared decades ago. Now, they’re coming back

Kazakhstan’s Ile-Balkhash State Nature Reserve is a different place now than it was a decade ago. The delta ecosystem, which occupies around 4,151 square kilometers (1,603 square miles) across the country’s Almaty and Balkhash region, was devoid of large mammals, and its scrub, marshland, and woodland were degraded.

Fast-forward to 2024. Rare mammals like the Bukhara deer and the Kulan, a type of wild ass, graze on vegetation, surrounded by over 50 hectares of restored forest.

Now, the region is about to welcome back an animal that hasn’t been seen in the wild there for over 70 years: the tiger.

The apex predators once roamed across Central Asia, part of their historic range — an area that once extended from Turkey in the west to the Korean peninsula in the east, and from the northern Siberian territories of Russia to the equatorial tropical islands of Indonesia. Tigers now occupy less than 7% of the range they used to, and in Kazakhstan, systematic hunting and a reduction of tiger prey saw the big cats declared extinct in the Caspian region in the 1950s.

In September, two captive Amur tigers were translocated from Stichting Leeuw, a big cat sanctuary in the Netherlands, and are now settling into a semi-natural three-hectare enclosure within the reserve — with the hope that their offspring will be among the first wild tigers in the country in decades.

“These tigers were selected because they’re very similar to what would have been found in the Caspian region (before their extinction),” says Stuart Chapman, lead of the Tigers Alive Initiative, WWF’s coordinated network of tiger range offices, government bodies, partners and communities. Amur tigers, typically found in Russia’s Far East, have to survive hot summers and freezing cold winters, which is a similar climate to the Balkhash region.

The two tigers, called Bodhana and Kuma, were transported on land from the Netherlands to Germany, from where they took a six-hour flight in the hold of a commercial plane to Kazakhstan, and then a 20-minute helicopter ride to the reserve.

Chapman describes the event as a landmark moment for conservation and says it gives hope to the future of tigers — not just in the region, but globally.

“Tigers have been translocated within country boundaries, and zoo tigers cross international borders all the time, but that’s for them to remain in captivity,” says Chapman. “This is the first time that tigers have crossed international borders to reintroduce them into the wild.”

‘This is where the magic happens’

While the tigers’ journey from the Netherlands to Kazakhstan was relatively quick, this trip has been decades in the making.

Kazakhstan first announced its intention to bring back tigers in 2010, and the government established the Ile-Balkhash State Nature Reserve back in 2018 when it began rewilding efforts in earnest. The efforts, supported by WWF and the United Nations Development Program, included large release programs of tiger prey such as the endangered Bukhara deer and Kulan — some of which hadn’t been seen in the region in a century. Strict hunting regulations were also put in place, which allowed the wild pig population to bounce back, too, Chapman adds.

Chapman says the political will, well-managed protected area, and local adherence to hunting regulations have enabled the success of the project. “When you get a positive alignment of all those things, this is where the magic happens,” he says.

Bodhana and Kuma were prepared in the months before the journey, including getting used to their transport crate and learning to hunt within their enclosure to ready them for the semi-wild environment of the reserve.

The tigers remained in a quarantine enclosure for the first 30 days to allow for veterinary checks, and earlier this month, Bodhana and Kuma were released into the semi-wild area together, where conservationists hope they will breed.

“Any cubs produced will stay with the mother. The male will be removed from the enclosure once the female gives birth and then they will undertake a program of rewilding where there will be no human contact,” says Chapman.

In the wild, cubs typically leave their mother after two years, but Chapman says they have estimated a slightly longer time frame, as the animals may need longer to adapt to their environment. When the cubs are released into the wider reserve, they’ll be radio-collared and monitored continuously by researchers.

‘A second chance’

Bodhana and Kuma are just the beginning. At least eight more tigers are expected to join the pair in the coming years, with the aim of having 50 wild big cats roaming the reserve by 2035.

The work won’t end there, though: conservationists will have to manage human-wildlife conflict in the area. While there are no communities inside the reserve area, four villages are on the outskirts housing around 6,000 people.

Education programs and compensation schemes have already been set up well in advance of the tiger release, and Chapman adds that by radio-collaring the tigers, they will be able to set up an early warning system for the villages that has proved successful in populated areas of India.

While the overall global tiger population increased from around 3,200 in 2010 to an estimated 5,573 in 2023, not all conservation efforts in the past few decades have been equal. At the same time as Nepal tripled its population of tigers, they went extinct in Laos, and numbers continued to decline in Malaysia, Myanmar and Indonesia. Tigers have lost an estimated 93% of their range according to the IUCN, and while some populations are strong, fragmentation of habitats and protected areas is still a threat to the species.

But the concerted and successful rewilding efforts in Kazakhstan give Chapman hope that this could be the first of many reintroduction initiatives.

“It’s not often, in conservation terms, the wildlife gets a second chance,” he says, adding: “Bringing back tigers to Kazakhstan is so significant in conservation terms, I have to pinch myself that this is happening.”

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