A wild Siberian tiger has been sighted at a nature reserve in China, near the border with North Korea, for the first time in 30 years.

According to the state-run China Daily on Thursday, a staff member with the Changbai Mountain National Nature Reserve spotted the tiger near a tourist road on the western slope of Mount Baekdu and used a mobile phone to capture the animal’s image.

Siberian tigers and Mount Baekdu, known as Mount Changbai in China, are culturally significant for both Korean and Chinese people.

A week earlier, staff members from the same nature reserve discovered tracks believed to be those of a wild Siberian tiger about 300 meters from the sighting location. 

According to China’s National Forestry and Grassland Administration, as of April this year, the number of wild Siberian tigers living in the nature reserve stood at 70, double the number since it opened in 2017.