Camera traps provide a non-invasive technique to monitor wildlife, especially cryptic species. A network of camera traps has been used to study carnivores in north-eastern China, during which footage of an Amur tiger Panthera tigris altaica and two cubs was filmed. This is the first time that camera-trap video evidence of the Amur tiger breeding in China has been obtained. Historically, the Amur tiger was distributed across most of the mountainous forest areas of north-east China, but it is believed there are now only c. 18–22 individuals, in Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces. The main Amur tiger population lies in the Sikhote Alin region of Russia.

On 10 October 2014 a photograph of a female Amur tiger with a cub was obtained in Jincang forest farm, which is not within a protected area, by a local man who took the photograph with his mobile phone. Examination of the pug-marks confirmed the presence of a female and a cub. On 4 November 2014 a camera-trap video of a female Amur tiger with two cubs was captured in Wangqing National Nature Reserve in Xinancha forest farm after 1,945 trap-days. The location is a straight-line distance of c. 30 km from the Sino–Russian border. A study in Hunchun Nature reserve in Jilin province, to the south-east, during 2009–2011, detected one female and four male tigers, using non-invasive genetic techniques, indicating the potential for a small breeding group (Caragiulo et al., 2014, Oryx, http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0030605314000817). In 2014 we documented the Amur tiger on 17 occasions (eight camera-trap records, two reports by local witnesses, three identifications of pug marks, and losses of livestock on four occasions) in 13 locations in north-east China. This work has shown that Amur tigers can be successfully photographed when signs of presence are carefully interpreted and camera-trap sites carefully selected.

The study in Wangqing is mainly funded by WWF, Jilin provincial forest department and the Fondation Prince Albert II de Monaco, and is also part of the Amur leopard transboundary scientific cooperation memorandum of understanding between the Russian United Administration of the State Nature Biosphere Reserves Kedrovaya Pad and the Land of the Leopard, and the administrations of Hunchun and Wangqing Nature Reserves. We thank Professor Guangshun Jiang of the state forestry feline research centre, Fuyou Wang and Quan Sun of the Wangqing forestry bureau and several others for help in the field.