The Tiger

The Tiger

Author: John Vaillant

Publisher: Knopf Canada

Published: 2010-08-24

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 0307375277

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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. To their horrified astonishment it emerges that the attacks are not random: the tiger is engaged in a vendetta. Injured and starving, it must be found before it strikes again, and the story becomes a battle for survival between the two main characters: Yuri Trush, the lead tracker, and the tiger itself. As John Vaillant vividly recreates the extraordinary events of that winter, he also gives us an unforgettable portrait of a spectacularly beautiful region where plants and animals exist that are found nowhere else on earth, and where the once great Siberian Tiger - the largest of its species, which can weigh over 600 lbs at more than 10 feet long - ranges daily over vast territories of forest and mountain, its numbers diminished to a fraction of what they once were. We meet the native tribes who for centuries have worshipped and lived alongside tigers - even sharing their kills with them - in a natural balance. We witness the first arrival of settlers, soldiers and hunters in the tiger's territory in the 19th century and 20th century, many fleeing Stalinism. And we come to know the Russians of today - such as the poacher Vladimir Markov - who, crushed by poverty, have turned to poaching for the corrupt, high-paying Chinese markets. 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 once fit seamlessly into the tiger's ecosystem. Above all, we come to understand the endangered Siberian tiger, a highly intelligent super-predator, and the grave threat it faces as logging and poaching reduce its habitat and numbers - and force it to turn at bay. Beautifully written and deeply informative, The Tiger is a gripping tale of man and nature in collision, that leads inexorably to a final showdown in a clearing deep in the Siberian forest.


Carnivorous Nights

Carnivorous Nights

Author: Margaret Mittelbach

Publisher: Villard

Published: 2009-04-02

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0307516830

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Packing an off-kilter sense of humor and keen scientific minds, authors Margaret Mittelbach and Michael Crewdson take off with renowned artist Alexis Rockman on a postmodern safari. Their mission? Tracking down the elusive Tasmanian tiger. This mysterious, striped predator was once the world’s largest carnivorous marsupial. It had a pouch like a kangaroo and a jaw that opened impossibly wide to reveal terrifying choppers. Tragically, this rare and powerful animal was hunted into extinction in the early part of the twentieth century. Or was it? Journeying first to the Australian mainland and then south to the wild island of Tasmania, these young naturalists brave a series of bizarre misadventures and uproarious wildlife encounters in their obsessive search for the long-lost beast. From an ancient cave featuring an aboriginal painting of the tiger to a lab in Sydney where maverick scientists are trying to resurrect the animal through cloning, this intrepid trio comes face-to-face with blood-sucking land leeches and venomous bull ants, a misbehaving wallaby who invades their motel room, and a crew of flesh-eating, bone-crunching Tasmanian devils gorging on roadkill. They bond with trappers, bushwackers, and wildlife experts who refuse to abandon the tiger hunt, despite the paucity of evidence. Sifting through local myths, bar-room banter, and historical accounts, these environmental detectives sweep readers into a world where platypus’ swim, kangaroos roam, and a large predator with a pouch was–or perhaps still is–queen of the jungle. Filled with Alexis Rockman’s stunning drawings of flora and fauna–-made from soil, wombat scat, and the artist’s own blood–Carnivorous Nights is a hip and hilarious account of an unhinged safari, as well as a fascinating portrayal of a wildly unique part of the world.


No Beast So Fierce

No Beast So Fierce

Author: Dane Huckelbridge

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: 2019-02-05

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 0062678876

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The astonishing true story of the man-eating tiger that claimed a record 437 human lives “Thrilling. Fascinating. Exciting.” —Wall Street Journal • "Riveting. Haunting.” —Scientific American Nepal, c. 1900: A lone tigress began stalking humans, moving like a phantom through the lush foothills of the Himalayas. As the death toll reached an astonishing 436 lives, a young local hunter was dispatched to stop the man-eater before it struck again. This is the extraordinary true story of the "Champawat Man-Eater," the deadliest animal in recorded history. One part pulse-pounding thriller, one part soulful natural history of the endangered Royal Bengal tiger, No Beast So Fierce is Dane Huckelbridge’s gripping nonfiction account of the Champawat tiger, which terrified northern India and Nepal from 1900 to 1907, and Jim Corbett, the legendary hunter who pursued it. Huckelbridge’s masterful telling also reveals that the tiger, Corbett, and the forces that brought them together are far more complex and fascinating than a simple man-versus-beast tale. At the turn of the twentieth century as British rule of India tightened and bounties were placed on tiger’s heads, a tigress was shot in the mouth by a poacher. Injured but alive, it turned from its usual hunting habits to easier prey—humans. For the next seven years, this man-made killer terrified locals, growing bolder with every kill. Colonial authorities, desperate for help, finally called upon Jim Corbett, a then-unknown railroad employee of humble origins who had grown up hunting game through the hills of Kumaon. Like a detective on the trail of a serial killer, Corbett tracked the tiger’s movements in the dense, hilly woodlands—meanwhile the animal shadowed Corbett in return. Then, after a heartbreaking new kill of a young woman whom he was unable to protect, Corbett followed the gruesome blood trail deep into the forest where hunter and tiger would meet at last. Drawing upon on-the-ground research in the Indian Himalayan region where he retraced Corbett’s footsteps, Huckelbridge brings to life one of the great adventure stories of the twentieth century. And yet Huckelbridge brings a deeper, more complex story into focus, placing the episode into its full context for the first time: that of colonialism’s disturbing impact on the ancient balance between man and tiger; and that of Corbett’s own evolution from a celebrated hunter to a principled conservationist who in time would earn fame for his devotion to saving the Bengal tiger and its habitat. Today the Corbett Tiger Reserve preserves 1,200 km of wilderness; within its borders is Jim Corbett National Park, India’s oldest and most prestigious national park and a vital haven for the very animals Corbett once hunted. An unforgettable tale, magnificently told, No Beast So Fierce is an epic of beauty, terror, survival, and redemption for the ages.


On the Trail of the Yellow Tiger

On the Trail of the Yellow Tiger

Author: Kenneth Swope

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2018-07-01

Total Pages: 454

ISBN-13: 1496206266

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The Manchu Qing victory over the Chinese Ming Dynasty in the mid-seventeenth century was one of the most surprising and traumatic developments in China’s long history. In the last year of the Ming, the southwest region of China became the base of operations for the notorious leader Zhang Xianzhong (1605–47), a peasant rebel known as the Yellow Tiger. Zhang’s systematic reign of terror allegedly resulted in the deaths of at least one-sixth of the population of the entire Sichuan province in just two years. The rich surviving source record, however, indicates that much of the destruction took place well after Zhang’s death in 1647 and can be attributed to independent warlords, marauding bandits, the various Ming and Qing armies vying for control of the empire, and natural disasters. On the Trail of the Yellow Tiger is the first Western study to examine in detail the aftermath of the Qing conquest by focusing on the social and demographic effects of the Ming-Qing transition. By integrating the modern techniques of trauma and memory studies into the military and social history of the transition, Kenneth M. Swope adds a crucial piece to the broader puzzle of dynastic collapse and reconstruction. He also considers the Ming-Qing transition in light of contemporary conflicts around the globe, offering a comparative military history that engages with the universal connections between war and society.


The Golden Spruce

The Golden Spruce

Author: John Vaillant

Publisher: Vintage Canada

Published: 2009-03-18

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0307371328

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR NON-FICTION • WINNER OF THE WRITERS’ TRUST NON-FICTION PRIZE “Absolutely spellbinding.” —The New York Times The environmental true-crime story of a glorious natural wonder, the man who destroyed it, and the fascinating, troubling context in which this act took place. FEATURING A NEW AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR On a winter night in 1997, a British Columbia timber scout named Grant Hadwin committed an act of shocking violence in the mythic Queen Charlotte Islands. His victim was legendary: a unique 300-year-old Sitka spruce tree, fifty metres tall and covered with luminous golden needles. In a bizarre environmental protest, Hadwin attacked the tree with a chainsaw. Two days later, it fell, horrifying an entire community. Not only was the golden spruce a scientific marvel and a tourist attraction, it was sacred to the Haida people and beloved by local loggers. Shortly after confessing to the crime, Hadwin disappeared under suspicious circumstances and is missing to this day. As John Vaillant deftly braids together the strands of this thrilling mystery, he brings to life the ancient beauty of the coastal wilderness, the historical collision of Europeans and the Haida, and the harrowing world of logging—the most dangerous land-based job in North America.


The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

Author: Elisabeth Tova Bailey

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Published: 2010-01-01

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1565126068

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Bedridden and suffering from a neurological disorder, the author recounts the profound effect on her life caused by a gift of a snail in a potted plant and shares the lessons learned from her new companion about her the meaning of her life and the life of the small creature.


Tigers of the World

Tigers of the World

Author: Ronald Tilson

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2009-11-30

Total Pages: 547

ISBN-13: 0080947514

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Tigers of the World, Second Edition explores tiger biology, ecology, conservation, management, and the science and technology that make this possible. In 1988, when the first edition was published, tiger conservation was still in its infancy, and two decades later there has been a revolution not only in what is known, but how information about tigers is obtained and disseminated. In the fast changing world of conservation, there is a great need to summarize the vast and current state-of-the-art, to put this into historical perspective, and to speculate in what yet remains to be done.Tigers of the World, Second Edition fulfills this need by bringing together in a unique way the world's leading tiger experts into one volume. Despite the challenges ahead, there are bright spots in this story and lessons aplenty not only for tiger specialists but large carnivore specialists, conservation biologists, wildlife managers, natural resource policymakers, and most importantly the caring public. - Examines the past twenty years of research from the world's leading tiger experts on biology, politics, and conservation - Describes latest methods used to disseminate and obtain information needed for conservation and care of this species - Includes coverage on genetics and ecology, policy, poaching and trade, captive breeding and farming, and the status of Asia's last wild tigers - Excellent resource for grad courses in conservation biology, wildlife management, and veterinary programs - New volume continues the classic Noyes Series in Animal Behavior, Ecology, Conservation and Management


The Girl and the Tiger

The Girl and the Tiger

Author: Paul Rosolie

Publisher:

Published: 2019-09-17

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 9781945654312

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When Isha is sent away to live with her grandparents on the Indian countryside, she finds a young Bengal tiger that needs her protection. Her crusade to save the tiger becomes the catalyst of an arduous journey of awakening and survival across the changing landscape of modernizing India.


The Year of the Rabbit

The Year of the Rabbit

Author: Oliver Chin

Publisher: Immedium

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 42

ISBN-13: 1597020230

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Rosie the rabbit befriends a boy who leads her on a wild adventure with a tiger. Lists the birth years and characteristics of individuals born in the Chinese Year of the Rabbit.


Impossible Owls

Impossible Owls

Author: Brian Phillips

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2018-10-02

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 0374717702

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The acclaimed journalist’s New York Times–bestselling essay collection: “hilarious, nimble, and thoroughly illuminating” (Colson Whitehead, author of The Underground Railroad). In this highly anticipated debut collection, Brian Phillips demonstrates why he’s one of the most iconoclastic journalists of the digital age, beloved for his ambitious, off-kilter, meticulously reported essays that read like novels. The eight essays assembled here—five from Phillips’s Grantland and MTV days, and three new pieces—go beyond simply chronicling some of the modern world’s most uncanny, unbelievable, and spectacular oddities. They explore the interconnectedness of the globalized world, the consequences of history, the power of myth, and the ways people attempt to find meaning. Phillips searches for tigers in India, and uncovers a multigenerational mystery involving an oil tycoon and his niece turned stepdaughter turned wife in the Oklahoma town where he grew up. Dogged and self-aware, Phillips is an exhilarating guide to the confusion and wonder of the world today. If John Jeremiah Sullivan’s Pulphead was the last great collection of New Journalism from the print era, Impossible Owls is the first of the digital age.