The Amur tiger, like all tigers, is threatened by its high black market value as an ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine. In fact, the illegal wildlife generates up to ten billion United States dollars per year, trailing only the illegal narcotics and arms trade in annual revenue. The 1989 opening of the Russian-Chinese border exacerbated this illegal trade within the Russian Federation. The Amur tiger also suffers from a reduction of its prey base due to subsistence poaching of ungulate species and rampant logging. This reduction in wild prey has resulted in increased tiger-human conflicts such as livestock depredation, further reducing the locals’ incentive to protect tigers.
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