AN undercover agent hired by a Hong Kong-run conservation group to protect the endangered Siberian tiger from poachers has been seriously wounded and his wife and son killed by a bomb believed to have been planted by the Russian mafia.
The man, one of 16 armed wildlife rangers employed by the Tiger Trust in the Russian Far East, is in critical condition after the explosion ripped through his Vladivostok apartment on July 14.
Michael Day, who runs the British end of the trust, believes the attack was carried out by members of the Russian underworld who he claims are involved in the outlawed trade in tigers for Chinese medicine.
''The young ranger was working undercover investigating the continued slaughter of the last of Russia's wild tigers to supply the underground black market in neighbouring China,'' he said.
''The bomb apparently detonated as he opened the kitchen door, killing his wife and baby boy instantly.'' Mr Day said he was ''stunned'' and ''sickened'' by the attack on the Russian ranger, who he did not want to identify. The bomb marked an ''alarming escalation in the otherwise routine danger normally associated with the job'', he said.
''Confrontations in the field between poacher and game warden often end in violent shootings and sometimes death,'' he said.
''[Last week] we have seen the illegal traders taking the offensive and targeting the innocent family of a man whose only mistake was to work on the side of wildlife.