The Tiger

by John Vaillant

Making matters still more difficult is the fact that tiger prey typically travel in herds. With their dozens of eyes, ears, and nostrils, and their decades of collective tiger-evading experience, a herd of deer or boar can be as vigilant and jumpy as a Secret Service detail. In order to subvert this, the tiger must embody a contradiction: this large, pungent, extraordinarily charismatic animal must achieve a state of virtual nonexistence while operating inside the sphere of its prey’s highly attuned senses. Witnesses, native and Russian alike, agree that there is something almost metaphysical about the tiger’s ability to will itself into nonbeing—to, in effect, cloak itself. In the Bikin valley, it is generally believed that if a tiger has decided to attack you, you will not be able to see it. With the exception of the polar bear, which also hunts by stealth, there is no other land mammal this big whose survival depends on its ability to disappear.