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Putin saves TV crew from tiger

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-09-01 17:31

Moscow - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has been feted by Russian media for saving a TV crew from an attack by a Siberian tiger in the wilds of the Far East.

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (L) holds a five-year-old tiger's head as scientists put on a collar with a satellite tracker on the animal in the academy of sciences Ussuri reserve in Russia's Far East, August 31, 2008. [Agencies]

Putin, taking a break from lambasting the West over Georgia, apparently saved the crew while on a trip to a national park to see how researchers monitor the tigers in the wild.

Just as Putin was arriving with a group of wildlife specialists to see a trapped Amur tiger, it escaped and ran towards a nearby camera crew, the country's main television station said. Putin quickly shot the beast and sedated it with a tranquilliser gun

"Vladimir Putin not only managed to see the giant predator up close but also saved our television crew too," a presenter on Rossiya television said at the start of the main evening news on Sunday.

The 55-year-old Russian Prime Minister was shown striding through the forest in camouflage and desert boots before grappling with the feline foe.

He helped to measure the tiger's incisors before placing a satellite transmitter around the neck of the beast, which can weigh up to 450kg and measure about 3 metres from nose to the tip of the tail.