Tigers in the Snow By Peter Matthiessen

No more than a few thousand tigers survive in pockets of Asia, a continent they once roamed far and wide. The largest of them, the Siberian tiger, is today almost entirely confined to the little-populated Russian Far East, a region that may offer the species' best hope for survival. But the implosion of the Soviet Union intensified poaching and habitat depredation, prompting a group of Russian researchers and U.S. wildlife biologists led by Maurice Hornocker to join forces to stave off extinction.

Peter Matthiessen brings to the Siberian tiger the deep knowledge of and feeling for the natural world that have made classics of his previous books. Accompanying researchers into the field, he allows the reader to participate vicariously in the battle for the tiger's future. Along the way, he tells how the species evolved and evokes its crucial, often totemic role in human cultures and mythologies. He has made of the tiger's dilemma a drama-underscored by Hornocker's one-of-a-kind photographs-that conveys powerfully what a loss to our collective imagination the disappearance of these great cats would be.
Tigers in the Snow

Peter Matthiessen ☆ 5 Read & Download

This book is more about the people and parks involved in the preservation of tigers and their habitats than it is about tigers themselves. One definitely gets a sense for some of the magnificence of the animal along the way, but this appears to be incidental to the purpose of the book, which I take to be to incite interest or action in saving these animals and their habitats.

The difficulties involved in maintaining a tiger habitat in proximity to humans is explored, which is exacerbated by the amount of land and prey that are required to sustain a tiger population. The book also delves into the dangers of poaching that arises when a strong marketplace for tiger parts (bone, penis, ...) exists. English Not only is the photography beautiful, but Matthiessen really makes you feel like your in Siberian wilderness with him, tracking these majestic creatures. You feel the anticipation and excitement as you track them down in below freezing temperatures, the dread when you discover the poachers have killed yet another one, and just sheer awe when you're finally able to see one.

Besides being a gifted storyteller, Matthiessen also gives the hard facts about the species. You come away from from this with conflicting emotions, feeling inspired and defeated. Inspired because you got to see one awesome picture after another, and defeated because its all too likely they'll become extinct in our lifetime. English This book would have benefited greatly from an editor at a publishing firm. It's mostly a collage of random bits of information on tigers, with the author's story loosely spruced in. The author is a researcher, not a writer, and that is quite obvious to the reader since the story lacks any sort of flow.

The book also relies heavily on statistics and estimates that are now dated (mostly coming from the late 1990s). It's not that big of a deal, but it felt wasteful to read about a situation that uses obsolete data. The pictures overall are nice, but it would have been better if there were more of them, and if they always fit the timeline of what was the author was discussing.

I love Siberian tigers, but this book is not worth the purchase or rental other than to briefly flip through the photos included. I'd recommend a recently produced documentary on them instead. English In 1992 in Russia, some American and Russian scientists started a project to study and hopefully save endangered tigers. Many species of tiger have already gone extinct. There wasn’t very much known about tigers because they are so secretive, so studies previously were done by studying their tracks in the snow, which only accounts for part of the year. These scientists started by fitting collars on a few of the remaining tigers in Eastern Russia. They also hoped to work with the local populations to teach them more about tigers and to hopefully bring them onboard to help save the tigers.

I will admit that I skimmed a little bit over sections of the book that described the locations, but when Matthiessen focused on the tigers, I found it very interesting. He also looks at some species of tiger that have already gone extinct and some of the reasons why. This was my first book by him, and I do hope to read more by him focusing on different animals.
English A delightful combination of beautiful photographs and detailed descriptions that provide tremendous insight into the plight of one of the most beautiful creatures on this Earth. English

I have great respect for Peter Matthiessen's work and integrity. His writing is quite scholarly and often a little dry, so sometimes it reads like a textbook. Hence my middling rating. Still worth the read, though, especially if you like big cats. English The plight of tigers in the wild, the attempts to save the species, and the seeming inevitability of their extinction

The book isn’t what I expected. I thought it would be more about the physiology and mythology of tigers, but it’s chiefly a litany of failures to preserve wildlife. A large part of what I read were accounts of different kinds of tigers over the past century. Every one of these accounts has the words, or words like, “deforestation”, “destruction of habitat”, “unchecked slaughter”, and “extinct.”

This was too difficult a read for me. Honestly, I began skimming chapters toward the end of the book. The horrendous treatment of the tiger by humans. The wholesale butchering of this species typically for greed, vanity, and faux-medicines. The often futile attempts to stop sanctioned and unsanctioned hunters.

The accompanying photographs are very pretty.

The accompanying photographs are very pretty. English No more than a few thousand tigers survive in pockets of Asia, a continent they once roamed far and wide. The largest of them, the Siberian tiger, is today almost entirely confined to the little-populated Russian Far East, a region that may offer the species' best hope for survival. But the implosion of the Soviet Union intensified poaching and habitat depredation, prompting a group of Russian researchers and U.S. wildlife biologists led by Maurice Hornocker to join forces to stave off extinction.

Peter Matthiessen brings to the Siberian tiger the deep knowledge of and feeling for the natural world that have made classics of his previous books. Accompanying researchers into the field, he allows the reader to participate vicariously in the battle for the tiger's future. Along the way, he tells how the species evolved and evokes its crucial, often totemic role in human cultures and mythologies. He has made of the tiger's dilemma a drama-underscored by Hornocker's one-of-a-kind photographs-that conveys powerfully what a loss to our collective imagination the disappearance of these great cats would be. English A must read for Tiger Enthusiasts. Peter Matthiessen not only focuses on the Amur aka Siberian Tigers, but also the other extinct and extant Tiger subspecies their Evolutionary history and current distribution etc. Being a fan of Peter Matthiessen's works, I enjoyed this book. If you can tolerate some chapters which are dry and text book like, then this is a good read. English Though the writer only made two trips to the Russian far east, each lasting about a week, he managed to write a whole book out of the experience. While that itself would probably be sufficient for a Nat Geo article, consisting of interviews with the locals and wildlife biologists involved in conserving tigers, the core of the book was really about the natural history of this great cat throughout its historical and present range. This most charismatic 'flagship' megafauna species has adapted to a broad range of habitat and climatic conditions all over Asia, and Matthiessen provided a fascinating study of the different tiger subspecies' biology and ecology.

The use of remote cameras in field research was just beginning at the time, and is now widespread. Despite knowing much more about the tiger's requirements and ecology, sadly the situation since then has only gotten worse, with Indochinese and Sumatran populations being particularly hard hit. Although the author never had much luck in sighting them in his journeys, his flair for depicting wilderness landscapes remains top notch, combining with the factual elements to make this short book highly enjoyable and more than just about the Siberian tiger. English