Review: Christian Caryl Among the Amur Tigers
A new book on saving the tigers of Russia’s far east
I confess to a certain tiger addiction. My social media feeds are only too happy to service this need: tigers leaping, tigers stalking, tigers lazing, tigers swimming. There are lots of baby tigers, too, adorably practicing their roaring, cuddling with caregivers, or clambering over their brothers and sisters. But even these infant versions somehow manage to evoke the power, athleticism, and beauty of their species. I find it hard to take my eyes off them.
That we are able to see so much footage of tiger cubs reflects a sad reality: the majority of tigers alive on our planet today are captives. Most estimates seem to place the number of wild tigers at 4,500, which may well be an overcount. They live in slivers of habitat that have been laboriously protected, though the future of such places doesn’t seem entirely guaranteed, given the burgeoning human populations in India, Nepal, and other places where most tigers live.
But there is at least one place in the world where some progress has been made in increasing protections to tigers in recent decades: Russia. Jonathan Slaght has a gripping tale to share on this score. A few years ago he came out with a wonderful book about his work to conserve the endangered Blakiston’s Fish Owl, the world’s largest living species of owl, which is indigenous to the Russian Far East and Japan. Slaght conducted most of his research in Russia’s Maritime Province, bordering China and North Korea. It’s a region of dense forests and brutal winters, and these forbidding conditions lent a note of high adventure to his account of what it was like to study, trap, and monitor these amazing creatures. (One of the best ways of getting around was by riding snow mobiles on frozen rivers, an idea that still gives me the willies.)
