THE TERMS OF THE BIG CAT-PRIMATE RELATIONSHIP HAVE BEEN amazingly consistent over time: it doesn’t matter if the primates in question are gun-wielding tayozhniks, !Kung hunters, preverbal australopithecines, or baboons through the ages. As far as our immanent fear of predatory cats goes, virtually nothing has changed in five million years beyond our techniques for managing it. Because of this, there are striking similarities between the behavior of Trush’s Inspection Tiger team at Markov’s cabin and that of a troop of baboons on the African savanna: formed into defensive groups by day, both
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