A tiger released into the wild in Russia's Far East by President Vladimir Putin himself has killed and eaten a bear, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday.
Boris the tiger's culinary triumph was discovered by staff at the national park in the Amur region where the tiger resides, the park's deputy director for science, Vyacheslav Kastrikin, was cited as saying.
“There wasn't much left of Boris' feast by the time we got to his hunting ground, so it's hard to say whether it was a brown bear or an Asian black bear,” Kastrikin said.
It was not the first time the big cat had vanquished an ursine rival: Boris killed a 3-year-old bear last August, Interfax reported.
Putin, whose animal-loving stunts are notorious, was present when Boris was released from a tiger sanctuary into the wild last May together with another orphaned tiger, Kuzya, and a tigress Iliona.
The cubs, members of the endangered Amur tiger species of which less than 500 cats are estimated to remain, were reportedly found starving in a forest and were trained to hunt by sanctuary staff before being sent back into the wild.
Not to be outdone by Boris, Kuzya has also made the headlines since his emancipation. In December last year, he was captured on infrared camera eating a domestic dog in China after crossing over the border from Russia. After eating his fill, he later returned to Russia.