In Subzero Temperatures, Protecting a Tiger in the Snow

 

BookShelf: In Subzero Temperatures, Protecting a Tiger in the Snow

“Tigers Between Empires: The Improbable Return of Great Cats to the Forests of Russia and China”
By Jonathan C. Slaght
Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, $33.00

Reviewed by Jennifer Weeks

Do a Google image search for “wild tigers,” and nearly all images that come up will show the big cats stalking through lush tropical forests. 

But once in a while, you’ll see an image of a tiger in the snow — an Amur tiger, also known as a Siberian tiger.

Tigers once roamed across a huge swath of northeast Asia, from central Siberia in the west to northeast China and the Korean Peninsula in the east. 

Today, there are about 450 Amur tigers in Russia and China — the second-largest tiger subspecies in the world, after Bengal tigers in India and neighboring countries.

“Tigers Between Empires: The Improbable Return of Great Cats to the Forests of Russia and China” is the story of the Siberian Tiger Project, an international conservation effort launched in the early 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union threatened to erase tigers from that region. 

It’s a compelling look at how tigers live, and at the challenge of doing conservation field work in remote places.

Once protected, then targeted

Amur tigers were the only tiger population that actually grew in the 20th century, as habitat loss and hunting decimated other tiger species. 

The region is remote and mountainous, and the former Soviet Union enacted strong laws and habitat protection measures that preserved the forests where tigers roamed. 

 

When the USSR dissolved in 1991, and

Russia’s economy went into free fall,

Amur tigers became targets.

 

But when the USSR dissolved in 1991, and Russia’s economy went into free fall, Amur tigers became targets — especially for sale to lucrative traditional medicine markets in Asian countries.

The Siberian Tiger Project brought American scientists to the region to work with Russian conservationists. 

The goal was to track and monitor tigers, learn their life habits — how far they ranged, what they preyed on, how long they lived — and build a case for protecting them. 

The Russians knew the region and its wildlife, had experience capturing tigers and could draw on field research by a few pioneering Russian scientists dating back to the 1930s. The Americans had technology, such as radiotelemetry collars, that could be used to track the tigers.

A typical day in the field

“Tigers Between Empires” shows how grueling this kind of work can be. 

Here’s a typical day early in the project for Dale Miquelle, the lead U.S. field representative for the Siberian Tiger Project, who worked on conservation in Russia’s far east from 1992 through 2022:

• Wake in a tent in the forest; get up and walk a trap line to see whether a tiger has been snared for collaring.
• Walk two hours downstream along a local river, crossing it repeatedly, to the parking spot for his battered hatchback. Hand-crank it if needed to jump-start the battery, then drive to the local airport.
• If the weather cooperates and a pilot is available, attach radio antennas to a biplane and fly across the area, listening for VHF radio signals from three collared tigers. Once an animal is detected, spiral over it and map its rough location.
• Land by late afternoon, record flight details and stay overnight in town.
• Leave by 6 a.m. to drive back to the parking spot, then walk two hours back into the forest to meet other researchers checking trap lines.

It’s draining work, thousands of miles from home. It requires living in rough quarters. There are subzero temperatures during winter, with few days off. There’s also a language barrier to deal with.

Collaring was critical

Project scientists constantly faced challenges, from catching tigers (box traps were quickly abandoned in favor of snares), reacting when anesthetic darts they used to immobilize tigers failed and darting the animals from helicopters to recapture them for exams and collar replacement. 

Recapturing was critical because the collar batteries lasted a couple of years at best. So one collar only provided brief snapshots of a tiger’s life. 

With data from several collars, scientists could show when tigers became sexually mature, how they interacted and how many cubs a female was likely to produce in her lifetime.

The advent of GPS satellite collars in 2010 was a major advance. That allowed tigers to be tracked automatically from outer space, instead of having scientists flying in loops over the animals’ territories. 

A few that were captured and relocated after attacking humans could be monitored in their new locations to make sure they were staying away from populated areas. 

Responding to those attacks (which sometimes were caused by diseases that affected tigers’ behavior) was critical for building support in local communities.

A new generation of tiger biologists

There are plenty of setbacks mentioned in this book: Tigers are poached, hit by cars on remote roads and die of disease. 

But it’s inspiring to see the project scientists make slow progress capturing tigers, tracking them, mapping their territories and deciphering their behavior. 

They also train a new generation of tiger biologists to keep the work going, and push Russian and Chinese officials to protect more tiger habitat on both sides of the international border. 

 

‘Wildlife populations can be restored

if we have the will to do so.’

                                — Author Jonathan Slaght

 

As author Jonathan Slaght, a conservation scientist himself, concludes: “Wildlife populations can be restored if we have the will to do so. This has been demonstrated with wolves in North America, brown bears in the Alps, and Eurasian lynx across Europe.”

To succeed, Slaght continues, tiger conservation “requires government agencies and national governments to be open, mutually respectful, and cooperative among themselves and across borders.”

“Amur tigers move freely across the Sino-Russian frontier; governments, NGOs, and civil society should follow suit, taking their lead from the tigers,” he adds.

Jennifer Weeks, contributing editor to SEJournal, is a freelance editor and writer and a former board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists. She was senior environment and energy editor at The Conversation US from 2015 to 2024. Her last review was of “Potomac Fever: Reflections on the Nation’s River."

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 11, No. 18. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.