Tigers in the Snow

Matthiessen, Peter, and Hornocker, Maurice (Introduction by)

ISBN 10: 0865475768 / ISBN 13: 9780865475762

Published by North Point Press, 2000

About this Item

Some scuffing to bottom cover edges, with some edgewear to dustjacket. 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 of Panthera 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 Maurice Hornocker, 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. Peter Matthiessen (May 22, 1927 ? April 5, 2014) was an American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer, and zen teacher. A co-founder of the literary magazine The Paris Review, he was the only writer to have won the National Book Award in both nonfiction (The Snow Leopard, 1979, category Contemporary Thought) and fiction (Shadow Country, 2008). He was also a prominent environmental activist.

Seller Inventory # SKU2010024928

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Tigers in the Snow
• Publisher: North Point Press
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0865475768
• ISBN 13: 9780865475762
• Binding: Hard cover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Weight: 25 ounces
• Seller catalogs:
  • Natural History

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Author

Peter Matthiessen was a naturalist, explorer and writer. His works of fiction include At Play in the Fields of the Lord, Far Tortuga and the acclaimed 'Watson Trilogy'. His explorations resulted in many fine works of non-fiction, among them The Snow Leopard, The Cloud Forest and The Tree where Man was Born. He died in 2014, aged 86.