The Tiger

A True Story of Vengeance and Survival

By: John Vaillant

Narrated by: John Vaillant

Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's summary

It’s December 1997, and a man-eating tiger is on the prowl outside a remote village in Russia’s Far East. The tiger isn’t just killing people, it’s annihilating them, and a team of men and their dogs must hunt it on foot through the forest in the brutal cold. As the trackers sift through the gruesome remains of the victims, they discover that these attacks aren’t random: The tiger is apparently engaged in a vendetta. Injured, starving, and extremely dangerous, the tiger must be found before it strikes again.

As he re-creates these extraordinary events, John Vaillant gives us an unforgettable portrait of this spectacularly beautiful and mysterious region. We meet the native tribes who for centuries have worshipped and lived alongside tigers, even sharing their kills with them. We witness the arrival of Russian settlers in the 19th and early 20th centuries, soldiers and hunters who greatly diminished the tiger populations. And we come to know their descendants, who, crushed by poverty, have turned to poaching and further upset the natural balance of the region.

This ancient, tenuous relationship between man and predator is at the very heart of this remarkable book. Throughout we encounter surprising theories of how humans and tigers may have evolved to coexist, how we may have developed as scavengers rather than hunters, and how early Homo sapiens may have fit seamlessly into the tiger’s ecosystem. Above all, we come to understand the endangered Siberian tiger, a highly intelligent super-predator that can grow to ten feet long, weigh more than six hundred pounds, and range daily over vast territories of forest and mountain.

Beautifully written and deeply informative, The Tiger circles around three main characters: Vladimir Markov, a poacher killed by the tiger; Yuri Trush, the lead tracker; and the tiger himself. It is an absolutely gripping tale of man and nature that leads inexorably to a final showdown in a clearing deep in the taiga.

©2010 John Vaillant (P)2010 Random House

Critic reviews

2011, The Orion Book Award, Short-listed

“This book must be read by everybody who is interested in the conservation of wildlife. It takes you to the Russian wilderness to meet face-to-face with the Siberian tiger.” (Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation and Animals Make Us Human)

“This book is magnificent, surely the best chronicle ever published of the wild Amur tigers in Russia’s Far East. In it are chilling accounts of human encounters with tigers—but these encounters, however fearsome, convincingly demonstrate the role that these enormous cats continue to play in the natural world. Equally compelling are the people of Primorye, those who of necessity must hunt the tigers, and those who would preserve them. To call this book a page-turner is an understatement. It’s riveting.” (Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Hidden Life of Dogs, The Hidden Life of Deer, The Old Way, and Tribe of Tiger)

incredible.

The 1st non fiction book I've listen to on audible where I am considering listening to it again.

Worth every minute.

What a remarkable and serious account of so many fascinating topics and characters relating to the Amur Tiger. Please don’t hesitate and share this with those you know!

Excellent narrator.

Excellent narrator. Great story. Love learning about such a little known part of the world.

Excellent

This book is terrific. It mixes adventure, interesting characters and history at once. It’s narrative nonfiction at its best. The author is terrific at bringing his own words to life. I found myself wanting this to be longer which is never the case.

Excellent book. Needs professional narration.

Very compelling, gives a good immersion feeling. Slightly overdrawn.
Narrator (author) has fairly monotonous and slightly whiny voice, Also unfortunate that person, who did so much prep work, mispronounced all Russian words. It’s not that hard to put stress on correct syllable, unlike English, most languages are phonetically correct, one can learn to read without understanding pretty quickly.

A must read for those who’s venn diagram of interests overlap in russian history, ecology, and hunting

A must read for those who’s venn diagram of interests overlap in russian history, ecology, and hunting

A great story well told.

Tigers, Siberia, hunting man eating tigers in Siberia. I would never have considered this book had it not been recommended by a good friend. Lucky for me, I had the day off today or I'd have been up all night. A tiger kills a man in Siberia in a way that strongly suggests she chose her prey and stalked him for some time. The men who hunt her try to understand why. Do tigers hold a grudge? Is this all about retribution? If so, for what? It reads like a great mystery/thriller with enough history and psychology (or us and the tigers) thrown in to make it one of my favorite reads of the year.

Symbolic Siberian Man-Eating Tiger

The wonders you might find in the giant and bountiful gardens of literature have never failed to amaze me. One need only look widely enough and take a chance and he might be put in the Siberian taiga (the sometimes swampy coniferous forest of high northern latitudes) in far eastern Russia as the locals encounter a looming Amur tiger (a/k/a Siberian tiger which can grow up to 10 ft. & 660 lbs.), seemingly intent on exacting revenge for being shot and having already eaten two men in separate incidents over several days.

In the course of this account, Mr. Vaillant colors the local characters and the poverty in the Primorski province of the Russian Far East, and makes one contemplate who is more danger to man (Panthera tigris altaica or Hominis corrupti regimen).

Mr. Vaillant does a great job narrating and paints a fuller picture with his voice inflections and pauses. This makes him an exception to the rule that authors make lousy narrators, though I'm finding more and more that some narrators apparently believe they can improve up (i.e., modify) the book by adding ridiculous accents, emphases that are clearly misplaced, and their otherwise overly dramatic flourishes.

Brilliant nonfiction that I'd not heard of until a few days ago while digging in the Audible/Amazon.

Definitely Not Tony the Tiger

The first half is a combination of Russian History and Tiger Conservation Education and alot of it. Second half gets to the heart of the story,which is really engaging and remarkable. I have to say because of all the Russian references to geography and characters, it may have been easy to keep track of names and places if I had read rather than listened. However the author reads his story very well.

Extraordinary

I rooted for the tiger! This is nonfiction that reads like high concept suspense—on a par with “Endurance”—I hate that humans have encroached on this land, without learning how to live with the tigers. I love this book.