Dale Miquelle

"Dr Dale Miquelle is a world authority on Siberian tigers. In 1992 Dale had intended to spend only a couple of years in Russia but was so moved by his first encounter with a wild Siberian tiger he has devoted more than 20 years of his life to them. Dale has been leading research and conservation efforts on the Siberian tiger since 1992. He is currently director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Russia program which is the worlds longest running field research project on tigers."

"In 1995, then-Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin signed a decree calling for the development of a national strategy for tiger conservation. Anti-poaching efforts and education programs increased, thanks in good part to assistance from Russian and overseas nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), as well as governmental agencies from other countries. Also in 1995, Miquelle and his colleagues led an extensive survey of tiger habitat, funded in part by the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The survey estimated the country's tiger population at between 430 and 470 animals.

"In a habitat protection plan presented in the 1999 book Riding the Tiger: Tiger Conservation in Human-dominated Landscapes, Miquelle and his colleagues wrote that about 60,000 square miles—an area larger than that of nearby North Korea—remained as tiger habitat in the Russian Far East. The authors wrote: "We defined the goal of this habitat protection plan as protection of all existing tiger habitat, i.e. no further loss of Amur tiger habitat should occur."" [1]