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Summary: Tigers in the Snow Book Review
Review: The book that I chose to read was titled Tigers in the Snow, written by Peter Matthiessen. Tigers in the Snow was published by North Point Press, in 2000. It is 174 pages long. In this book the author takes us with him on a journey through Asia trying to save the tigers. He writes about his experiences in the Siberian Tiger Project, founded in 1989. Peter Matthiessen writes to show people how important tigers are in the world and how close we are to losing them. This book is very factual and detailed it gave me the true picture of the tiger's cultural history and how close we are to losing them forever.
This book is written from both an ecological and biological stance. Ecologically, he explains how tigers interact with other animals. They interact with the elk and other prey such as wild pig by hunting them. They indirectly interact with humans by hunting the same prey as human hunters do. They also interact with humans because human industries destroy the tiger's and its prey's habitat. Biologically, the book proves that tigers live a very strenuous life. At all times they are in danger of being hilled by poachers. Tiger's pray is very scarce making it hard for them to survive, especially ones with cubs. Their pray is so scarce because hunters over hunt tiger's main food sources which include large animals such as elk and wild pig. The number of human attacks by tigers increase along with the lack of prey. This is because the tiger will only attack a human if they are starving. Despite the tigers size and strength it fails in about 90% of its hunts.
This book discusses many aspects of the tiger. It addressed where they live, how many are left, and their hunting patterns. Tigers were once plentiful throughout Siberia, China, Korea, and South East Asia. Now, the 3,000 remaining wild tigers are mostly confined to small parks and reserves throughout the tiger world. Tigers are poached relentlessly for their fur and body parts which are often used for Asian folk medicines. Male tigers need large amounts of wooded territory. Several female tiger's territories often overlap a male's territory. Tigers have very unique hunting patterns. They use their excellent sight and hearing to hunt animals instead of their sense of smell like most carnivores do. Often times, they hide the carcass of their prey and return multiple times to eat. In order to convince governments that better tiger protection plans were needed scientists needed to extensively research the tiger. To do so the author, as a part of the Siberian Tiger Project, captured and radio collared the tigers. This way they could monitor movement and behavior without human influence. "From monitoring theses tigers-some for 7 years now- we know how much food they require, what they eat, how they react to human activities, and what makes for good tiger habitat," Matthiessen states in this book. He tells about his experiences studying the tigers. He traveled all around Asia to different reserves researching the tigers and their activities.
I think that this book has taught me a lot and that I can relate what I've learned to what we have discussed in class. It taught me about the tiger's niche in the environment, and we have studied niches of different organisms in class. I could also incorporate population studies into this book. The book often times discussed the population of tigers in certain areas. I have a better understanding of the tiger's population dilemma by using my knowledge of immigration, emigration, mortality, and natality. Overall, I thought this book was very educational and worth reading if you are at all interested in tigers or the effort being made to save them.
What I learned about the tiger can be applied to other animals facing loss of habitat and extinction. The book has taught me how much human's industry and over hunting can affect an animal's survival, more than any other natural factor. It has taught me that it is up to us to save the tiger from extinction and that is true for all endangered animals....
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Summary: Portrait of a metaphor
Review: The tiger remains one of nature's most provocative metaphors for power, independence, grace and spirit, but a world consumed with symbols is hardly noticing as the animal itself sinks slowly toward oblivion.Now one of the most intuitive nature writers of our recently past century, Peter Matthiessen lends his poet's voice to the desperate effort to save the tiger in "Tigers in the Snow." He makes an eloquent case for enlightened coexistence between humans and tigers, starting in a remote corner of Siberia where the species has staked its last best hope for survival. Their impending extinction, he argues, would not only damage the world's ecology, but also our collective imagination. "Tigers in the Snow" is more analytical and less lyrical (and far less introspective) than "The Snow Leopard." Mattheissen's fans will find "Tigers" comparable to his 1992 book, "African Silences," a sobering account of the catastrophic depredation of the African landscape and its wildlife, particularly elephants. Indeed, as with many ecological calamities-in-the-making, the causes of the Asian tiger's decline -- hunting, reduction of food supply, man's encroachment and government policies (or lack of them) -- tragically resembles the majestic African elephant's deterioration.
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Summary: Brings this Historical Region to Life Again
Review: This book recounts the story of endangered Siberian Tigers in a grand sweep including their history and the stories of modern scientists, Russian and otherwise, who study them and seek to save them. It's a superb relaxation book, but one also with a strong message. Excellent photography and interspersed historical illustrations add to the books enjoyment. The endpapers map the startlingly short time (1800-2000) in which these Tigers have come to face extinction. Melodic names of Russian scientists, Nikolaev, Shetinin and Yudokov, and regions from Turkmenistan to Kyrgystan found me wondering where I had read of this grand territory before-- in Vladimir Nabokov's grand novel The Gift, of course, whose biologist hero would have known Matthiessen's Tiger subspecies "altaica" from the Altai Range. As if contrapuntal to Matthiessen's book, Nabokov left it uncertain whether his hero (recounted once again this year in a great conservation-sensitive book, Nabokov's Blues) died at the hands of gunfire or the claws of some wild beast. Matthiessen brings this wonderful and little known part of the world to life once again. One can only hope that his book has some sway on the Tigers' ability to find (in Nabokov's words from The Gift once again) "Equality Before the Law in the Animal Kingdom" in its long struggle to survive in spite of man.
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Summary: Tigers in the Snow Book Review
Review: Tigers in the Snow: By Peter Matthiessen
Published by North Point Press in February of 2000/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
185 Pages This book is about the studies and observations of the depleting tiger populations in Asia that was at one time thriving. This book is about Matthiessen's journey to Asia's Far East areas, and her studies of tigers there. Periodically through the book he also explains what people are doing to try and save this precious population of tigers.
This book relates to many of the things on both a biological and ecological level. On one side the things that we are doing to the environment are greatly harming the tiger populations, and even though this issue is beginning to look better, it may be to late. But on the other hand, the things that are done to harm to tigers also toy with the food chains and such. Although this book could be placed in both sections I believe that it would mostly end up under the biological context, because the main topic in this book is the depleting tiger population and how that is affecting other things.
This book jumped around a lot from place to place, and was very hard to follow, but the main points were very clear. Peter traveled to Asia and its tiger reserves to study the Tiger populations; while he was there they developed a new way of recording information about tigers with little trackers that they place on the tigers' neck. This helped them greatly in their study of these wild animals. Their first tiger to be caught and "tagged" was named Lena, this tiger lived throughout most of the book. After this they caught and tagged various tigers, but none were more talked about than Lena. During this book Peter explains the histories of all the tigers he explains, it is unbelievable how much prominence these creatures have in the mythical ring. He also explains the origins and evolution of the tigers that he encounters on his journey. In many spiritual tribes the Tiger was believed to be a God, and was a major sin to kill or harm one, and if one did harm a tiger there was to be a major price to pay. This book was very, very informative about tigers, and it showed not only the hard facts of tigers today, but also where the tiger's population has been and where it is headed.
I believe this work accurately represents the population of tigers and what is happening to them. In class we studied Biomes of the World and the issues of these specific biomes. In this book the issues of the biomes plays a major role in what happens to the tigers in Asia. Many of the problems that are reducing the tiger population of Asia, are also affecting the Biomes the same way. One of the main problems was humans in the late 1800s and early 1900s, they were shooting tigers for a prophet because there was no law against it. They could make lots of money off this, but did not realize the damage it could do to the tiger population as a whole, or how it could affect the same tiger population in the future.
Overall this book has been very influential and a great read. It has changed my views on many issues, and tigers as a whole. This issue of the tiger population going down is a major issue in the whole scheme of things; I believe that if the tiger population is deleted out of the world, many things would start to go bad. Many other populations of animals that are related to the tiger in the food chains would be badly affected. Hopefully, the tiger population will be refreshed within the next decades so that we don't have to find out what happens if the tiger population diminishes.
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