Liu Sihua, a villager from Liushuhezi Village in Huichun City, had taken 25 cows out to graze on a nearby mountain on Friday afternoon. When he was about to drive the cows back home, he discovered that a five-year-old cow was missing.

Liu started to backtrack to search for his missing pregnant cow.

He found the cow lying in the woods. As he bent down to examine her, Liu heard a roar. Wheeling around, he saw a 1.8-meter-long tiger leap out from trees 50 meters away.

Liu said he climbed a tree as fast as his legs and arms would carry him, and shouted loudly.

When he was confident the tiger had disappeared back into the woods, Liu came down from the tree and ran back to the village.

He reported the case to Huichun nature reserve management officials on Saturday morning.

Zoologists and workers from the reserve rushed to the site and found the buttocks of the cow had been eaten by the Siberian tiger. A dead calf was lying beside the cow.

Zoologists said the tiger returned to the cow on Friday night. Judging from the bite marks and feces found in nearby bushes, they said the animal that attacked the cow was a Siberian tiger.

Workers at the Huichun nature reserve installed a video camera at the site on Saturday morning, and captured footage of the tiger coming back to eat a leg of the cow in the afternoon.

There have been frequent reports of Siberian tigers attacking local people and their domestic animals in the area.

In September, an elderly man survived an attack by a wild Siberian tiger in Huichun City. The tiger was lurking in a corn field and suddenly pounced on cattle herded by Jin Zhencheng, a 68-year old farmer from Xijiashan Village.

After the cattle escaped, the tiger turned and attacked Jin, whose arms were clawed, his right clavicle fractured and legs scratched in the struggle with the tiger.