Photo Credit: YouTube via International Fund For Animal Welfare

Watching as this Amur tiger regains freedom, is an especially extraordinary moment.

Magnificent footage of one of the rarest tigers in the world being released into the wild reveals the incredibly raw survival spirit of an animal given another chance at freedom. Looking into his eyes, you can see his excitement and wild abandon.

The beautiful creature had somehow wandered into the human world, and was caught scrounging around the Khabarovsky province in Russia. The three-year-old tiger was lucky to have been given another chance –  instead of bringing him into captivity, the Russian government decided to release, Uporny, which means “stubborn” in Russian, back into the wild where he belonged.

Uporny is one of only 450 Amur tigers left in the wild, living in the Primorski and Khabarovski provinces of Russia, and the border areas of China and possibly North Korea.

Watch the footage below, where you’ll see as the cage door opens, the wild-eyed tiger looks angrily around, likely furious at being stuck behind bars. He lets out a ferocious growl and stands up, on the defense and seemingly unsure about whether to leave the cage. Then, in a single leap, he lunges from the cage and sprints towards the foliage, with a close up shot revealing the look of sheer joy on his face.

Once free, he has no intention of looking back.