Taiga, Taiga Burning Bright
Vaillant, John. The Tiger : A True Story of Vengeance and Survival. New York: Knopf, 2010.
One hundred and two years ago Jakob Von Uexküll coined the term “Umwelt” (Environment in German) to help explain behavior and social organization through a biological lens. “We must, he said, “First blow, in fancy, a soap bubble around each creature to represent its own world, filled with perceptions which it alone knows.”
John Valliant brings us into the bubble of the taiga in the far reaches of Russia, circa 1977, in his intriguing account of an Amur tiger turned vengeful killer. The tiger is greatly prized for its skin, its heart, its bones… virtually its entire being. You can still find poached tiger parts for sale in China today.
This forbidding terrain on the Chinese border is where we learn of the convergence of history (Czar, Stalin, Vietnam War) politics (perestroika and the Jewish Autonomous Region), cultures (Russian, tayozhnik) biology (“trophy engineering”), greed (poaching and nouveau riche) in surprising, thrilling, and deadly ways.
The journey into this bubble is not an isolated one. Valliant expertly explores this bubble in the context of how the outside word has impacted it. Life here has been shaped by Russia political vicissitudes since the Czar which, not surprisingly, have impacted the environment. Perestroika brought unfettered deforestation with black market oak, larch and pine spilling over into China and then to big-box stores where solid oak was sold at unbelievably low prices. (Makes me wonder where lumber comes from and just what is the true price?).
The Amur tiger is a wily, formidable predator – up to 10 feet ( 3+ meters) long and weighing in at around 300 pounds (136 Kilo). This tiger can cover 40 feet in 3-4 seconds. For centuries people and tigers have had a mostly respectful relationship in the taiga. They simply didn’t mess with one another. Sure, people, were attacked now and then, but in 1997 one attack signaled a sea change in this respectful relationship. Now people were terrified to go into the forest… and into the forest they must go to hunt (poach) and gather pine nuts to sell to the Chinese. The day-to-day lives of the people here, and their relationship to the forest, each other, and outside world is every bit as intriguing as the breath-taking hunt for the killer tiger. I image looking up “hard-scrabble lives” in Google maps and being pointed to this area of the world. It is hard for me, a too-soft American, to imagine eking out a living by searching, in -40 F temperatures, for pine nuts on the forest floor. They seem to lead hard lives with sporadic episodes of great emprise.
When Yuri Trush’s Inspection Tiger team arrived on the site where, Markov, a known poacher, had been attacked by an Amur tiger they are horrified by what they see. The pile of clothes that Markov had on when attacked lies there as if he abandoned them. Like an empty suit. If it were not for the blood and a hand a passerby might not know Markov was killed by a tiger. The Tiger Inspection Team had never seen such deliberate stalking by a tiger… it was as if the tiger “knew” Markov and was angry with him. Trush’s teammate, Sasha, looked over at what remained of Markov and wondered aloud: “Why is the tiger so angry with him?”
It is this haunting anger of a tiger that Vaillant explores so wonderfully. His research is compelling and includes the work of Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and her understanding of the relationship of !Kung of the Kalahari Desert and their relationship with lions. Tiger is a solidly researched, exemplary non-fiction, with a compelling narrative style that haunts and thrills and fuels your sense of wonder, and perhaps, wander. After reading this book I want to visit this area. Maybe. You see, the prospect both intrigues… and frightens me.
What’s with that Jewish Autonomous Region, anyway? Here’s a hint: It was Stalin idea.
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