The Tiger

by John Vaillant

Needless to say, once sheltered by a roof, carried in a car, and fed from a can, very few humans willingly return to sleeping on the ground, walking cross-country, and foraging with hand tools. The same is true of tigers: once they have been habituated to zoo conditions, there is no going back. To date, there has been no case of a captive tiger being successfully introduced, or reintroduced, to the wild. Captivity is a one-way trip.

The decrease—approximately 40 percent below the averages recorded over the previous decade—has been attributed to several factors, but chief among them is poaching. Even though the fine for killing a tiger in Russia is severe—approximately $20,000—the vicissitudes of Russian law make it nearly impossible to convict tiger poachers. In order to succeed in court, one must be able to produce a dead tiger, a suspect, and two witnesses—a hard combination to come by in the deep forest. Some of the details may differ, but in terms of the collective impact on Amur tigers, it is the early ’90s all over again.

The difference between the extinctions at the close of the Pleistocene and the bulk of those taking place today is one of consciousness: this time, however passively they may occur, they still amount to voluntary acts. Simply put: we know better. This is not an opinion, or a moral judgment; it is a fact.