The Tiger

by John Vaillant

Primorye’s bizarre assemblage of flora and fauna leaves one with the impression that Noah’s ark had...

raccoon dog,

canid called a dhole that hunts in packs,

reputed to attack humans ...

nurtures the greatest biodiversity of any place in Russia, the largest country in the world. It is over this surreal menagerie that the Amur tiger reigns supreme.

Of the six surviving subspecies of tiger, the Amur is the only one habituated to arctic conditions.

more fat and a heav...

huge physical force

quiet confidence,

heavy g...

can attain four inches along the outer curve,

(The tiger is, literally, tattooed: if you were to shave one bald, its stripes would still be visible, integral to its skin.)

Able to swim for miles and kill an animal many times its size, the tiger also possesses the brute strength to drag an awkward, thousand-pound carcass through the forest for fifty or a hundred yards before consuming it.

tiger’s forepaws differ from the hind ones in that they are larger with five claws arranged in an almost handlike

hind paws have only four claws.

And yet, they are also gentle and dextrous enough to catch a fly in the fold of a pad and release it, unharmed.

With the exception of a snake’s fang, it is about as close to a surgical tool as one can find in nature.

victim is not so much sliced as flayed.

Once the forepaws are fully engaged, a tiger can literally ride its prey into the ground.

tiger’s tail will become rigid, balancing and stabilizing the hindquarters almost like the tail fin on an airplane.

Meanwhile, the tiger’s forepaws, combined with its fangs, form a huge three-point grappling device, as if, for a moment, the claws had ...

gathering and gripping capability comparable to the mouth of a much larger creature—something more on the order of a saltwa...

there is no creature in the taiga that is off limits to the tiger;

it alone can mete out death at will.

to ...

brown bears...

few wolves in Primorye, not because the environment doesn’t suit them, but because ...

One young male was observed subsisting exclusively on harbor seals, going so far as to stack their carcasses like logs for future use.

The indigenous peoples of Primorye—the

Udeghe,

N...

Oroch...

The tiger, as indigenous peoples know it, is a consummate hunter and the undisputed lord of the taiga, possessing the ability to change shape or disappear at will.

ethnography /eTHˈnäɡrəfē/ I. noun the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures. II. derivatives ethnographer /eTHˈnäɡrəfər / noun

Dersu

Dersu Uzala was a solitary and elderly Nanai hunter whose family had been killed by smallpox and whose world was disintegrating before his steadily weakening eyes.

It was believed in Dersu’s time that if you killed a tiger without just cause, you in turn would be killed. Likewise, if a tiger were to kill and eat a human, it would be hunted by its own kind.

all are vicious

saiga, a bizarre-looking antelope with translucent corkscrew horns and a trunklike snout that looks like a throwback to the Pleistocene.

Animals, he feels, should have a sporting chance; the field should be level between hunter and prey. “I can still see the blood, the heat and their suffering,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t last long there: it was too barbaric. And that’s why I’m so ruthless with the hunters now who hunt at night with the help of jack lights. I don’t consider that hunting; I think it is a massacre.”

During his off time he volunteered as a fishing inspector and this was where he discovered his true calling. “There would be situations with these poachers,” he explained. “Sometimes fights would ensue; shots would be fired. Escape and chase were possible. I like those things; I like being in confrontational situations.”

In spite of his eligibility, Trush never joined the Communist Party; he had no illusions about the corruption rampant within

it.

Siberia’s forests represent an arboreal subcontinent covering 2.3 million square miles; altogether, they account for a quarter of the world’s total wood inventory and more than half of its coniferous forests.

There are far bigger towns in Primorye where the first inquiry made of a stranger can easily be “So, what brings you to this asshole of the world?” Yuri Trush, however, is a bright spot on the landscape; he is well known around town and has a vigorous handshake, hug, or slap on the back for many of the people he encounters. But he had a different greeting for Vladimir Markov.

Trush such an unusual presence in this brutal milieu: he is a man who relishes the role of the authoritarian heavy, and he has carefully honed himself into a dangerous weapon that he is more than ready to unleash. And yet this capability is tempered by deep veins of mercy and compassion; life is hard in the taiga for man and beast alike, and Trush understands this. When he finds bear cubs orphaned by poachers (eight at last count), he nurses them in his apartment. Somehow, he is able—even in the heat of the moment—to keep both sides of the story in mind, and both sides of himself under control.

acts of owning a gun and using it to procure food represent a last vestige of independence and self-respect. However, even if they were able to get their hands on a hunting license, most tayozhniks’ firearms would fail a modern inspection, and new rifles are prohibitively expensive by Russian standards. To make matters worse, the process of getting licensed to own a gun is onerous and time-consuming: not only are medical and psychological tests required, but the applicant must pay for them.

total bill for tests, licenses, gun, and ammunition can easily approach $1,000, a sum many inhabitants of the Bikin valley

may not see in a year.

There is a deep irony in Trush’s work, and it lies in the fact that he lives in Russia, a country where many people will tell you that it’s impossible to live without breaking the law.