Togiak Refuge today released a photo of a highly unusual visitor to SW Alaska. This Siberian tiger was caught on a game camera that had been set up in an effort to document suspected illegal hunting activity on a tributary of the Togiak River.

Siberian tigers are native to eastern Russia, just across the Pacific from Alaska. They are a cold climate apex predator that has suffered from habitat lost (deforestation) across portions of their home range. While the presence of one here in western Alaska might be shocking to some, they are excellent swimmers and adept on the pack ice that would have been crossed to get here.

Game cameras are routinely used by biologists on the refuge. This particular camera had been placed on a river by law enforcement officers after several suspicious kill sites were discovered from the air. Initially poaching was suspected and the camera was set up at a likely spot on the river in an effort to document illegal activity.

There have been other unusual visitors in the recent years, including musk oxen and a wood bison, though this one certainly moves to the front of the line. Additional cameras have been deployed and area hunters and anglers are urged to use caution when traveling on rivers that drain into the Togiak River.

Tigers are like that. I'll bet it has turned around and gone home by tomorrow

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Originally posted by 458Win:
Tigers are like that. I'll bet it has turned around and gone home by tomorrow

We saw two when we lived in Dillingham. One in the dead of winter while riding Snogos to Manokotak.

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Originally posted by Frostbit:

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Originally posted by 458Win:
Tigers are like that. I'll bet it has turned around and gone home by tomorrow

We saw two when we lived in Dillingham. One in the dead of winter while riding Snogos to Manokotak.

Maybe they will thin down our Hairy Man population!

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Originally posted by waterrat:

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Originally posted by Frostbit:

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Originally posted by 458Win:
Tigers are like that. I'll bet it has turned around and gone home by tomorrow

We saw two when we lived in Dillingham. One in the dead of winter while riding Snogos to Manokotak.

Maybe they will thin down our Hairy Man population!

Wow, I haven't heard about the "hairy man" for a long time. Many sightings around Manokotak. Usually accompanied by a bottle of R&R.

Greatest concentration half way between Man and Kong. Especially if the agriculturalist assisted the R+R.

Everyone knows
The caribou have dropped their antlers by now. That must be a old picture from last fall.

Great post! I had no idea Siberian tigers were there.

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Originally posted by Ole Miss Guy:
Great post! I had no idea Siberian tigers were there.

Tigers are coming back there due to the enormous support of groups like PETA

I thought the US Tigers were in Detroit????

I've been telling you guys for years that it's poaching and tigers, not wolves, that killed off all the caribou. Thanks for finally proving me right. It's not only Togiak--tigers reduced the Western Arctic Caribou Herd to half of what it used to be and killed off most of the sheep all across Alaska. I'm putting in a Game Board Proposal to allow private pilots to aerial shoot tigers, gas tiger cubs in dens, hunt tigers same day airborne, sell tiger parts, transport tiger hunters with helicopters etc. Why not? It worked for wolves and bears.

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Originally posted by vicvanb:
I've been telling you guys for years that it's poaching and tigers, not wolves, that killed off all the caribou. Thanks for finally proving me right. It's not only Togiak--tigers reduced the Western Arctic Caribou Herd to half of what it used to be and killed off most of the sheep all across Alaska. I'm putting in a Game Board Proposal to allow private pilots to aerial shoot tigers, gas tiger cubs in dens, hunt tigers same day airborne, sell tiger parts, transport tiger hunters with helicopters etc. Why not? It worked for wolves and bears.

Everyone knows that was the Snow Leopards not the Tigers.

Sorry to disappoint all of you but that was my house cat, it got loose when I was living in McGrath. Glad he ran away could not afford to keep him in moose and boo meat.
He will make one of the village people a great pet. Keeps you warm on those cold winter nights.

The sighting of one tiger proves it was tigers that wiped out the caribou?? I doubt if enough tigers swim that ocean to wipe out caribou herds, just my thoughts on the subject based on a lot of preditor work and study Ive done in Mexico and SW Texas on Lions, mostly on our family ranch and a couple of ranches I leased in the texas big bend area..

Not saying your incorrect, Im saying that one sighting now and then proves nothing one way or the other..A high number of sightings would..

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Originally posted by Atkinson:
... Im saying that one sighting now and then proves nothing one way or the other..A high number of sightings would..

In Alaska, one sighting is enough. Two sightings are more than enough. Three sightings prove it beyond all doubt. This predator-prey stuff ain't rocket science.

And yes, a tiger would have real trouble swimming over from Russia but I heard the Russians designed a special life jacket for tigers. During the presidential campaign they outfitted a tiger with one and dumped it into the Bering Sea. Just another Russian effort at sabotage.

All true--I read it on the Internet.

Now somebody needs to build a wall between Siberia and Alaska to stop illegal tiger immigrants from swimming across!

This is a true story, not an April fools joke. About 23 years ago, I took my oldest son to the Falfurrias, TX area to turkey hunt. We met the owner. He said we were a bit early so lets go back to his place and check on his dog and his cat. I thought that was kind of weird but what the hell. Off we go.

As we drove up to his place, I noticed this high fence. His "cat" was a full grown tiger. Somewhere I have pictures of us in the pen with that tiger. Those things are massive.

This guy was one crazy bastard. I knew he wasn't right. He died a couple of years later of a cocaine overdose in his living room. He went out and shot a buck and drug it in the living room. He had the deer on his lap with a big tray covered in blow on top of the deer. He did a lot too much and that was it. I would like to say I was surprised but I wasn't.

I figured the bears would eat the tiger in Togiak, lots of bears there ... The moose would swim up to our tent on upper Togiak lake for protection.

Well, shit.
So much for "What happens in Togiak..."

Well at least I didn't get any of our Eastern European assistant guides in the picture ...