Rent The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival

Synopsis

The hunt for a man-eating tiger across the forbidding landscape of Russia's Far East.

When Yuri Trush was called in to investigate an attack by a Siberian tiger, what he found was unlike anything he'd ever encountered. Nothing remained of the victim but stumps of bone protruding from his boots. Even more chilling was the evidence that this attack had been carefully orchestrated, as if the tiger was seeking revenge. Before long, the beast struck again, and Trush, leader of a tiger conservation unit, found himself forced to hunt this animal through the brutal cold of a Siberian winter, becoming intimately acquainted with the tiger's history, motives, and unique method of attack—until their harrowing final encounter.

John Vaillant recreates these astonishing events against the backdrop of Russia's most remote frontier, a place where the native peoples worship tigers but poachers threaten the species' survival. He describes the historic collisions between Chinese and Russian settlers (trappers, thieves, deserters, and exiles), and the struggles of their descendants, who, in the chaotic aftermath of perestroika, turn to poaching to survive—in this case with deadly consequences.

A haunting, gripping exploration of predators and prey, and an intimate portrait of a remarkable animal increasingly threatened by interaction with humans.


From the Hardcover edition.

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