Wild Siberian tiger captured in NE China village after injuring woman

A wild Siberian tiger that surfaced in a village in Mishan, Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, and hurt a villager has been caught and sent to the China Hengdaohezi Feline Breeding Center in Hengdaohezi township of Mudanjiang city, Science and Technology Daily reported on Saturday.

At about 6 am on Friday, local police received a report that a tiger was found in an abandoned residential house in Linhu village in Mishan and had hurt a female villager working at the farmland.

A group of police officers immediately arrived at the village to secure the scene and evacuate the crowd.

Soon after getting the news, wildlife experts and Cui Yan, an expert from the Heilongjiang Endangered Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, set out from Yichun for the village.

After arriving at about 7 pm, the experts successfully caught the tiger into a cage by using an anesthetic.

"If we find a wild Siberian tiger in the wild, we just drive it into the mountains," Cui told Science and Technology Daily. "But this tiger strayed into the village and might hurt more people, so we had to catch it."

"It was estimated to weigh over 200 kilograms," he said. "We strictly followed anesthetic procedure and finally caught it successfully."

"The tiger has no trauma and can move quickly," Cui said. "We judged that it was not from neighboring Russia because it wasn't wearing a collar. It may have come from the nearby administrative region of the China Tiger and Leopard National Park."

Experts have collected the blood of the tiger for DNA provenance identification.

On Saturday at noon, the tiger was transported to the China Hengdaohezi Feline Breeding Center for medical examination and health monitoring.

The injured villager had to undergo surgery at Mishan People's Hospital on Friday.

"She suffered some muscle damage and now is in stable condition," said a nurse from the hospital.