Writing About Tigers Was Inevitable: A Guest Post by Jonathan C. Slaght
Blending facts with vivid storytelling, this is a fascinating read about the remarkable conservation efforts to save the iconic Siberian Tiger from vanishing forever. Read on for an exclusive essay from author Jonathan C. Slaght on writing Tigers Between Empires.
Hardcover
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Tigers Between Empires: The Improbable Return of Great Cats to the Forests of Russia and China
Tigers Between Empires: The Improbable Return of Great Cats to the Forests of Russia and China
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Hardcover
$30.00
$33.00
The thrilling saga of the great Amur tiger and the scientists who came together, across the world, to save it.
The thrilling saga of the great Amur tiger and the scientists who came together, across the world, to save it.
For me, writing about tigers was inevitable. I first stepped into their forests thirty years ago, in 1995, as a teenage birdwatcher visiting the remote far-East Russian province of Primorye. As I scoured the tree canopy for glimpses of warblers and flycatchers, my other senses stayed firmly on the ground. I was keenly aware that a nearby shadow or large rock might be hiding a tiger, watching me as closely as I watched the birds. Just being in the same landscape as these great predators was enough to put my survival instincts on high alert, such is their power.
I returned to Primorye regularly after that trip, first for six months in 1997. Tigers were inescapable: the provincial flag boasted one, the capital city Vladivostok hosted an annual Tiger Day event, and villages, mountains, and rivers were named after them. Then in 1999 I signed on for a three-year Peace Corps stint in a remote village of Primorye. I quickly found that the only other Americans in this wild place were staffers of the Siberian Tiger Project, a pioneering Russian-American effort. These men and women had, since 1992, been on the front lines of tiger conservation: conducting cutting-edge field science and converting their data into meaningful actions that helped tigers claw back from the precipice of extinction. Researchers like Dale Miquelle, and John Goodrich, along with Russian colleagues like Ivan Seryodkin, began inviting me to participate in their adventures. Instead of spending a Saturday afternoon in a city park, I’d find myself on a small biplane flying into the wilderness to spy on tigers from above, or hiking up a mountain slope to follow giant cat tracks.
In 2021, shortly after I wrote Owls of the Eastern Ice, a book about my efforts to protect a rare owl species in Primorye, I reached out to Dale, with whom I’d remained in regular contact. For years Dale had told me he’d one day write about his experiences with the Siberian Tiger Project. Dale is perpetually in motion – an energetic force for good – and is juggling numerous tiger conservation initiatives. I wondered aloud if he would ever have the time to condense his thirty years of experiences into a single narrative. What if, I suggested, I told the story instead? With the success of Owls of the Eastern Ice, I was eager to write a second book. I’d seen Dale’s work up close and could give the Siberian Tiger Project a global platform. He mulled this over briefly, then agreed.
Over the next three years Dale sat with me for dozens of interviews, shared letters he’d written home from Russia in the early 1990s, and fact checked drafts of my chapters to ensure the narrative was on track. I then fleshed out his story with interviews from other individuals in the Siberian Tiger Project’s orbit, as well as with my own experiences. Tigers Between Empires was a pleasure to work on; a story I’d known for decades and was my privilege to tell.
