Alan Rabinowitz lived up to his “Indiana Jones of Wildlife Science” title, bestowed on him by The New York Times. In this book, he recounts his journey to the Hukaung Valley in Northern Myanmar while on a mission to establish the largest tiger reserve in the world. The renowned wildlife scientist and conservationist was the CEO of Panthera, a nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving the 40 different species of wild cats and their ecosystems. Pros and Cons of Life in the Valley of Death: The Fight to Save Tigers in a Land of Guns, Gold, and Greed by Alan Rabinowitz Pros With exceptional skill the writer weaves a spellbinding account with the thread of hunter and hunted, alternating roles between Amur tiger and man throughout, the detail of the telling magnetic. It's a veritable adventure/thriller/horror book. That is only the binding of the book though. What I found equally immersing was the extensive augmenting material. Such being the relative effects of Russian history from Lenin through perestroika, China's benighted potions market, tiger history and interactions, constructive and aggravating human activities, individual histories and mindsets, topography of the Primorye region, indeed most anything relevant. It was adapted into a feature film directed by Ang Lee in 2012. The Life of Pi movie won four Oscars, notably the Academy Award for Best Directing. It also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. Vaillant gives us a strong flavor of the relationships between the men (and they are mostly men) and animals in this harsh environment, often through quotes with those living there. In talking about a tiger that killed a hunter, one friend says: "If the tiger had felt that it was his fault--if he had killed a dog or done something else wrong--then he would have gone away." (p.175) "The tiger is strong, powerful, and fair." (p. 178) There is much anthropomorphism here, not only as quoted, but also by Vaillant. In fact, he makes a case for its inevitability, even necessity. Certainly if it helps a hunter or trapper avoid crossing a predator like a tiger, and keep himself more or less adequately fed--who's to argue?

O Tigre é uma leitura especialmente destinada a quem gosta de viajar, conhecer outras culturas e diferentes formas de vivência e sobrevivência. Key quote: "Vaillant’s tiger tale is nuanced." Note that the man-killing tiger was injured, and could no longer hunt its usual prey -- as is common in historic man-eaters. And tigers need a LOT of meat to survive a Siberian winter. You do not want to be charged by a hungry, 500 pound tiger! It's quite a story, and I recommend it with a few reservations. 3.7 stars, rounded up. Second bit of true infromation. Tigers are missing what is the tiger version of the collarbone. This allows them to jump really far. An Indian tiger can gain the height of a Asian Elephant quite easily.While doing deliveries for his family business young Adam runs from a man who wants to mug him and finds himself in a rubbish dump on common land, where he finds a Tyger.. (you know.. burning bright and all those tygery things that tygers do) this would be weird enough, but these animals are supposed to be extinct in that world, and this one talks. I also really liked the overall message of self belief and the power you have to change the world. I couldn’t help feeling very inspired myself! I can see how this might impact a child as they read it too. In April 2022, it was recognized on the Big Jubilee Read list of 70 works by Commonwealth authors to commemorate Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee. The final fight with the tiger is pretty tense, especially considering it probably took less than a few minutes. I liked the epilogue, most notably the fact that many of the people in Trush's region think he has the taint of the tiger on him now and won't sleep under the same roof.

Vaillant looks at people’s innate reaction to tigers, reporting on a study which concludes that our awareness of predator-prey relationships is an in-born gift from our ancestors. There is a fascinating section on why predators are naturally selected for intelligence. A dumb tiger will starve to death if it does not first become a cat-sicle in the 40-below temperatures of winter in the Amur region. The book has been translated into a wide variety of languages, including braille. It has also been adapted for the stage and television. Along with what drives much of the illegal trade in tiger-based supplements. The brandname Viagra is derived from vyaaghra, the Sanskrit word for tiger. Hormones control our thinking. Reviewers called the book “strange.”, said it was about animal abuse and it wasn’t one of the author’s best books. It was adapted for the stage in 2008. The television adaptation was broadcast on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom on Christmas Eve of 2019.I enjoyed the supplementary information - for me it was all relevant enough, and interesting enough. It contained loads of interesting information specific to tigers, but was a also a little broader, bringing in similarities and differences between tigers and other animals - wolves, the Amur leopard, brown bears. There was a lot of specialist research on Amur tigers explained. There was also a lot about the people involved - very detailed biographies of, in some cases, their entire lives. This included the victims of the tiger, their families, other relevant people living in the same towns and the tiger hunting team members. This all added to the greater context, but was perhaps the one aspect that was taken a but far for me. Having said all that, I know other readers found there was too little of the story and too much of the context. This book recounts author Alan Rabinowitz’s journey to the Hukaung Valley in Northern Myanmar to establish the largest tiger reserve in the world. Foi basicamente com estes ingredientes, que nasceu uma história extraordinariamente real e envolvente: A handful of reviewers didn’t enjoy this book. One called it “strange.” Another said that it wasn’t one of the author’s best books. And another said that the book was about animal abuse. Pros and Cons of A Tiger for Malgudi by R K Narayan Pros

The book is ostensibly about a tiger who has turned unnatural and has killed and even eaten two people. Vaillant shows that this is very, very rare. This part of SE Siberia originally sustained a variety of animals in a boreal forest that is moderately warm in the summer and very cold (30 to 40 below) in the winter. Native Udeghe and Nanai people coexisted well with the tiger and consider it a god. Their shamanic religion tells them to honor and not molest the tiger. With the arrival of Russians beginning nearly 200 years ago, a lot of pressures have developed and upset the natural balance of things with logging, mining, and weapons that have been used to kill tigers. The natural food sources have diminished for the top animals and humans alike. Numbers of tigers have greatly decreased and the tigers remaining are stressed. Mix Bagheera, Aslan, The Golden Compass, William Blake's Tyger burning bright and add an extra dash of imagination, vulnerability and community and you receive the astounding Tyger by S.F. Said.

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As a foreigner and immigrant myself, I encountered nothing but welcoming and pleasant behaviour from the UK citizens. UK is one of the loveliest countries in Europe and I'm very grateful to live here. The Great Patriotic War had scarcely concluded before the USSR began rebuilding and retooling for the Cold War. While Soviet engineers and scientists perfected the now ubiquitous AK-47 and tested the country’s first nuclear weapons, the general population reeled from the catastrophic synergy generated by six years of war and the seemingly endless nightmare of Stalin’s psychotic reign. During the two decades prior to Markov’s birth, the Soviet Union lost approximately 35 million citizens—more than one fifth of its population—to manufactured famines, political repression, genocide, and war. Millions more were imprisoned, exiled, or forced to relocate, en masse, across vast distances. With the possible exception of China under Mao Zedong, it is hard to imagine how the fabric of a country could have been more thoroughly shredded from within and without.” I very much enjoyed Tyger, Adam and Tyger have a great bond throughout the story and it has a very satisfying pay off at the end of the novel. There also seemed to be a message throughout that our enemies are not our neighbours, but the people pulling the strings, and I thought that was quite poignant with what is going on in the real world today as well. After the fall of the Soviet Union exacerbated poaching and habitat loss in Russia, a team of Russian scientists and American wildlife biologists collaborated to prevent the extinction of the Siberian tiger.

Some in the village felt sure he had invited his own death by robbing the tiger of its kill. 'It became a bit of a joke,' said one local resident, 'that he brought that meat to his own funeral.' Regardless of their other feelings about tigers, the residents of Sobolonye had great respect for the tiger's intelligence and hunting prowess, and the idea that these powers might be directed against them—at random—was terrifying. This tiger’s presence had cast a pall over the village”

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A couple more adds, from my sparse notes: Well-written and well-researched but TMI at times. Then again, chilling grace notes: an incident when a pride of lions in Africa slaughtered an entire troop of baboons. When the baboons realized they had no hope of escape, they covered their eyes and awaited their fate.