Tigers in the Snow (Hardcover) | Released: 01 Feb 2000

Dramatic full-color photography complements a close-up study of the endangered Siberian tiger that describes the big cat's role in its environment and the joint efforts of Russian researchers and U.S. wildlife biologists to preserve the endangered animal. 25,000 first printing. Bookswagon.com Review Indigenous to Asia, and once widely distributed across the continent, the tiger is yet another of the world's creatures to come perilously close to extinction in the last century. Where a hundred years ago the population ofPanthera tigris and its cousins stood at more than 100,000, a 1995 census put the total at less than 5,000. And, writes Peter Matthiessen, a longtime student and champion of endangered wildlife, "most biologists and conservationists ... would set that number even lower." Working with the noted wildlife biologist and photographer , Matthiessen recounts his travels into the Russian Far East and Manchuria in search of one of the rarest of the big cats, Panthera tigris altaica, the Siberian tiger. Once shielded, and not by design, by Communist policies that restricted travel in and development of its wilderness habitat, the Siberian tiger is increasingly threatened throughout much of its range as the dense old-growth forests of the Pacific seaboard fall to Japanese logging companies; at the same time, the tiger is still hunted for parts used by Chinese apothecaries (drinking the essence of a tiger is thought to bring renewed sexual vigor to aging men). Matthiessen, whose text brims with a righteous rage on the tiger's behalf, is able to report a few success stories, as Russian, Chinese, and American biologists work to conserve habitat in the wild country memorialized by V.K. Arseniev's Dersu the Trapper, a memoir that informs Matthiessen's own book. But his book is also full of tragedy, of terrible stories that help press a case for why the Siberian tiger should be protected everywhere in its domain. Matching a thoughtful, well-crafted text with remarkable photographs of tigers in the wild, this is a book that, with luck, will help spur renewed interest in making the world safe for wildlife of all kinds. --Gregory McNamee Review "A gorgeously, sadly elegiac defense of the Siberian tiger, as well as his vanishing relatives in India, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and China (or, in the case of Iran, vanished).... What Matthiessen knows and makes us feel, is that the fate of the tiger may be a kind of final judgment on whether human beings can actually call themselves civilized." --John Anderson, Newsday"Mathiessen is a great travel companion... His knowledge of... animals and people is breathtaking." --The Boston Globe"Matthiessen has always been at his best in dealing with the interplay of wild creatures, indigenous peoples ... and the relentless pressure of Western-style modernization. His unornamented prose contrasts sharply with his luminous subjects." --Bruce McCandless, The Austin Chronicle"Matthiessen... is our greatest modern nature writer in the lyrical tradition." --The New York Times Book Review"One of the most intuitive nature writers of our recently past century, Peter Matthiessen, lends a poet's voice to the desperate effort to save the tiger." --Ron Franscell, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution"Peter Matthiessen has a strong claim to being the most distinguished all-around writer of our postwar years. The breadth and quality of his achievements in fiction and social history, in ethnography and travel writing, in biography and environmental writing is simply stunning." --Fredrick Turner, Author of Beyond Geography"There is, to my mind, no writing life more vital and of greater distinction in the second half of our century." --Howard Norman, Author of The Bird Artist and The Museum Guard About the Author Peter Matthiessen is the acclaimed author of numerous works of fiction and non-fiction. His accomplishments as a naturalist and e