56| The Tiger
You won't see him waiting in the dark. Sitting just inside the shadows so that the light doesn’t touch him. And he has been waiting here, for you, for days.
If you would have taken the time to slow down, you might have noticed the footprints surrounding the cabin, in a calm and even stride.
But now, it is too late.
Because you wounded him. You stole from him. And now, it is his time to get his revenge.
And all you can do is try to defend your life. But as the seconds tick by, it becomes more and more apparent that the entire community around you will begin to wonder if man is really as strong as we think we are.
Or if the top predator is really that of the tiger.
Welcome back to tragedy with a view
When someone first sets eyes on Yuri Trush, they tend to recoil a bit. He is a big guy, a strong guy, and you can tell just by the way he stands that if you were to get in a fight with him, you would lose.
It might be the fact that he is a trained martial artists and is an extremely skilled fighter. It might be because he has this air of something simmering beneath his calm demeanor, or maybe it’s his eyes that seem to miss nothing.
Trush often kept in shape by working out with 70 lb kettlebells - which for those who don’t know, kettlebells are a round shaped weight with a handle on the top and they are an excellent piece of workout equipment.
Trush Circled in Red
He learned to shoot from his father at a young age, he learned karate, aikido which is a japanese form of martial arts, and he became very skilled with handling a knife. His size game him an advantage in many situations, as he was tall and broad and had a huge reach with his arms.
Whatever it is, though, when he was asked to be the leader of Inspection Tiger, which is an organization set up by the Russian Government to set up sting operations to catch local poachers, he didn’t really feel like he could turn down the position.
Trush, though seemingly larger than life, did not have much of a background in police work, detective skills or conservation like you might think this position would call for. He had previously held a position in the gold mines, he spent some time maintaining shaft elevators in other mines, and then when Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979, Trush volunteered to go and would end up holding rank as a lieutenant.
Then in 1994, he was approached by a friend for a new environmental conservation agency being formed. And this was inspection tiger.
His job would take him into the Taiga, or Russia’s far east to hunt down predators of the human kind, and work extremely hard to protect the Tigers living in the wild.
The Taiga is a chunk of land of Russian territory that is settled between China and the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the most bio-diverse regions in all of Russia, just based on its location to land and water, but this is also where arctic animals still thrive.
The Taiga is indicated by the “2” region on the far right.
This is because the Taiga sits in the lower arctic tundra, and it is a pretty hard climate, though the average temperature in the summer reaches a high of 70 degrees Fahrenheit or 22 degrees Celsius, which is pretty mild. But the winter temperatures plummet to a high temperature averaging at -11 degrees Fahrenheit or -24 degrees Celsius. When the sun goes down, the temperature drops even further.
Speaking of sunlight, though, the sun only shines about 2 hours per day during the winter months, the rest of the time, the sun is blocked by clouds, fog, and the slow rise, and quick descent over the mountains.
Caribou and wolves are a common sight in this area, but the less common animals you might see here include the Amur Tiger.
Amur Tigers, also known as Siberian Tigers, are the largest species of cat on earth today. They are extremely agile, quiet and can seemingly disappear on a whim. Their size, though, makes this seem impossible. The Amur tiger is one of 6 subspecies that survive today, and it is the only subspecies capable of handling the frigid arctic landscape.
Of the 6 subspecies that live today, the only one that’s population is considered stable is the Bengal Tiger. All others have less than 500 animals alive.
Topping out at around 500 lbs, or 226 kg, and growing to as long as 9 feet or 3 meters long, and standing about 3.5 feet or 1 meter high, these cats pack a punch when they want to. But they are also incredible athletes. With the capability of leaping 20 feet, or 6 meters, from a standstill, some experts have concluded that the Amur tiger, when needed, can jump “As high as it needs to”.Tigers have also been known to hunt down adult bears, however they will usually play it safe and most of their prey is in the form of boar, deer, and racoons.
Tigers are known to be religious hunters, clearly- they are carnivores- and part of this is their ability to stalk their prey silently, and to be able to determine what their prey might do so that they can plan ahead.
Their jaws are powerful and filled with razor sharp teeth. Though, they don’t need their teeth to kill. A tiger’s jaw can produce 1,000 lbs of PSI or pressure per square inch. To collapse a windpipe of a person you need 100 lbs psi and to cut off the carotid artery in the neck, you need 5 lbs psi.
Tigers are not only skilled, but well equipped hunters with canine fangs the length of a human finger, and claws that grow to 4 inches long that resemble a meat hook, but they are sharper and can cleanly slice through flesh.
Tigers live to around 10 years old in the wild, but in captivity, they can live to be around 20 years old, and Amur Tigers are really popular in zoos.
In 1940 a study of the Amur tiger in Russia found that the population had dwindled to only 50 animals. And this was mainly due to the hunting of Tigers to protect the small communities that developed in the Taiga and also some people found the fur trade business loved tiger pelts. In addition to this, China was willing to pay high prices for different parts of tigers and all of this combined lead to the decimation of the species.
A study in 2022 found that the wild population is estimated to be in the 260-480 range, which is a large range. But also, it can be difficult to get a head count on an animal that is extremely elusive and has learned to stay away from humans.
Much of the problems that Amur Tigers face in Russia today include loss of habitat due to people moving into the area, logging and forest fires. But one of the other concerns is inbreeding.
Amur tigers are found specifically in Russia’s far east, and they may cross the borders into China and North Korea a little bit - but the population is in this very small area and genetic diversity is still being studied to see what the effects are on the wild population. While researchers don’t have conclusive information that inbreeding is causing any problems, it is a note of concern.
In the 1940s however, when Russian’s had the realization that this tiger was going to be wiped from the earth, Russia was the first country to ban the hunting of Tigers, and did everything they could to protect the species.
Today you can see a lot of conservation groups stepping in, such as Wild Cats Conservation Alliance, and this is because a lot of the groups that the Russian Government started in the 1900’s have had their funds cut and so the organizations just can’t work to the same capacity.
And this includes Inspection Tiger which was tasked with hunting down poachers and trying to combat the illegal fur trade and the black-market trade of tigers.
On December 5, 1997, Trush received an urgent message saying he needed to go to a small mining town near the Chinese border called Luchegorsk (looch- eh- gore - sk).
Trush had received an assignment that was much more unusual than what he normally received. Because inspection Tiger is typically tasked with protecting Tigers from poachers, the fact that he was called to investigate the killing of a man by a tiger was already weird.
But what would make this more difficult, per se, is that the man who was killed was Vladimir Markov, who was a known poacher.
So poachers in the 1990’s, especially in Luchegorsk took advantage of the fact that the chinese loved Tigers. Not just their fur, but chinese medicine also used Tiger’s organs, blood and bones. And the proximity of China to the Taiga was very convenient to be able to easily pass tiger products across the border unnoticed.
It was estimated that in 2 years, from 1992 to 1994, one quarter of the tiger population was poached, and sold mostly to China.
Markov circled in red
And many of the people who were poaching and selling tiger products were doing so to survive. The communities in the Taiga are very poor areas and if someone had a job, it was usually in mining or logging which are both very physically demanding and dangerous jobs and many times families would lose loved ones and have to figure out a way to provide for themselves, or they would starve to death.
Children often start learning to provide for their families at an extremely young age, and then as they grow, some can’t help but be lured by the money that a Tiger could bring them.
So, it is December 5th, and Trush doesn’t really know what he is walking into. He is determined to do his job, but he also has a bit of hesitancy because he is usually protecting tigers, not investigating them, and because he normally goes after poachers he has had many encounters with different people in the town of Luchegorsk (looch- eh- gore - sk), and he knows that some of these people may be bitter toward him and be unwilling to talk to him at all.
When Trush and his team arrive at Markov's cabin at 3pm, he immediately notices an abundance of crows - which is a bad sign because they follow tigers. What troubled him was that all of the crows were in the trees, indicating that something was there - it was either dead or dying - and that a tiger was likely with it, preventing the crows from going down to the ground and feeding on what was there.
Making observations as he walked around the cabin, Trush came to some tracks in the snow that told a clear story. First, a large tiger had been walking around Trush’s cabin and apparently getting into things as the items on the porch were in disarray.
But more telling were the tracks on the trail that lead to and from the cabin. Here, coming down the trail were the footprints of a person. And, from the porch, heading in the direction of that person, the Tiger’s tracks appeared to have been bounding, with large gaps between a close knit cluster of all 4 paws. And then, where the Tiger’s tracks met a person’s, the person’s tracks stopped and all that was left was the tiger’s.
The Tigers tracks then turned and headed straight for the area where the crows had congregated in the trees. Trush followed the tracks.
Trush, as he walks, finds the hind foot of a dog, a glove, and part of a jacket sleeve that was covered in blood.
As he continues he finds that the tracks lead to a small clearing that contained a spot where the snow had melted away, indicating that something giving off a lot of body heat had been there for a significant amount of time.
Inside of that snowfree area, Trush found a human hand and head. The face of the person was gone. It wasn't just mangled or unrecognizable, but it was torn away.
There was a large bone, probably a femur, and then Trush found more tracks leading deeper into the forest.
So, he continues. His team of men are with him, and with them they also have a hunting dog, which they were using in this sort of circumstance to kind of be their alert in case something was prowling in the area that they couldn’t see.
As they follow the Tiger’s tracks, the dog starts to make some noise indicating that she is extremely uncomfortable. But Trush knows that if he waits too long, any evidence left behind might be consumed or disappear further into the woods, so he has to take action now.
But his actions are quite limited because Inspection Tiger doesn’t kill tigers. They protect them. And because the government was so adamant about protecting the species - in order for Trush to kill a tiger, he would first need permission from the government. So all he can really do is collect evidence.
But, obviously there is a concern about a man eating tiger and the evidence is going to support or deny the chances that this was a one off situation. Evidence that is going to be consumed if Trush can’t get to it first.
So with the dogs agitation, Trush and his team shoulder their rifles and press on. And after a couple of minutes they come to a second spot where the snow had melted away. In this spot they find Markov’s boots, with broken bones protruding from them, and a torn shirt that still has an arm inside a sleeve.
At this point, their dog begins to get really agitated and starts barking as she paces back and forth through the area.
And then everyone becomes silent and freezes as a low rumble reverberates through the small clearing. And as the rumble grows into a roar, it seems to come from every direction at the same time.
Unwilling to put themselves in an ambush position, Trush and his men cautiously backed out of the area.
But, to try to understand what happened or how this happened, Trush would begin trying to interview the people in this area and some would actually talk to him. This was because they had more respect for Markov and they wanted his story told and vengeance to be sought against the Tiger, even though they were not willing to go after the tiger themselves.
What he learned was that Markov had gone around bragging that he had killed a tiger cub recently. There was no proof, as no one saw this happen, or saw a body of a cub, but this is what Markov had been saying.
In addition to this, Thrush learns that on December 1st or 2nd, Markov again went hunting. When he stumbled upon a freshly killed boar, he decided this would be an easy dinner and cut off a hind leg and returned to his cabin.
Theoretically, when the tiger returned to the boar that it had killed, it found that it’s dinner had been tampered with, and because Markov’s scent was all over the kill - the tiger simply followed the scent trail that was left behind directly to Markov’s cabin.
At some point, Markov noticed this tiger hanging around his Cabin and not just walking around it, but attacking the items he had on his porch. Pouncing at windows and pressing against the walls.
What terrified Markov most was that there were potential entry points that the tiger could break into. With Markov’s cabin being deep set in the woods, he had intentionally made areas in his walls where he would be able to stick his gun barrel through a flap and take a shot at wildlife that passed near.
So he sees this tiger approaching one of these sections that was low to the floor, and Markov is now fearful for his life and feels that he needs to do something. But his rifle was left just outside his cabin door.
Markov, though, timed things perfectly and was able to retrieve his rifle while the Tiger was on the opposite side of the cabin. Slowly crouching near the flap the tiger was at, Markov quickly stuck his gun barrel through the flap, and pulled the trigger.
This shot struck the tiger on the right front either paw or lower leg, and caused it to flee.
Markov then slipped away while the tiger was away mending it’s wound. But the tiger would return.
December 3rd, Markov was making his way out of the woods from hunting, or poaching, and was heading to his cabin, where he had no idea the tiger was waiting to pounce.
So, as we already know, Trush didn’t have the capacity to kill the tiger and therefore he and his group left the location that Markov was killed at, but they would still be tracking this tiger. And as they did a few things became apparent.
At first they thought that they had 2 potential tigers going after Markov. The first they worried was the mother of the tiger cub that Markov had killed - but they pretty quickly determined that the paw size of this tiger was too big to be a female. They also didn’t really believe that Markov had shot and killed a cub. There was just no evidence supporting that.
Finding the Tiger to be a male, they figured that it must be the tiger that Markov stole from. And, this tiger was the same one that had been on his porch and that he shot because as the days passed, the single bloody tiger print they had been following in the snow became smaller and smaller until 4 prints became 3, as the tiger was no longer putting weight on the front right paw.
As the news of this tiger and the direction it was traveling spread, communities began to get more and more on edge.
On December 9th, Trush received a letter from the federal administrator for Biological resources and it read “this is to approve the shooting of the man-eating tiger. The Official permit will be issued upon receipt of the shooting report.” So now, Trush had what he needed to take down the tiger the next time they came to it. And he knew the next time they came across it, there would be no backing out.
In Sobolonye (Sah-buhl-ani), a nearby town, Andrei Pochepnya (Poe-chep-nee-ah) and Denis Burukhin (Burr-oo-kin), both twenty years old and best friends, had just arrived back home after being released from the army. They had been hunting and trapping with their fathers since they were young boys, so when they reunited they returned to this to help support their families.
But, with the tiger being in the area, everyone was on edge and Andrei’s and Denis’s families forbade them from going out into the woods. Andrei’s family owned a cabin deep in the woods that the boys would regularly use as a base for their hunting and trapping.
This order from his family to not go hunting did not sit well with Andrei. He fought with his mother and then on the morning of December 12, their neighbor, Leonid Lopatin watched as Andrei slung his rifle over his left shoulder and set out into the woods.
A day passed, and then another and another, and Andrei did not return. And finally, on December 15, a group of men decided they had to go out and look for Andrei. All of them were armed, and when they arrived at the cabin of Andrei’s family they found tracks. Tracks of a man and tracks of a tiger.
Following the tracks they found very little. Again, in a small clearing there was trampled snow, not quite melted, and Andrei’s rifle. When Denis, his best friend, picked up the rifle to inspect it, he found that the gun had been loaded and the bullet had a slight divot in it where the firing pin made contact. But, with the bullet still being in the chamber, the gun had clearly misfired.
But, this was an indication that the tracks did not cross at separate times. Andrei had clearly taken a shot at the tiger. And based on the fact that Andrei was now missing, it lead them to believe this shot was taken for defense against the attacking tiger.
50 yards away, the men saw a heap of what was left of Andrei. This time it was tattered and torn clothing, his boots, and tiny pieces of flesh. Over the 3 days, the wounded tiger had consumed all of Andrei, and then set off again.
Inspection Tiger had not been fast enough to prevent a second person from being killed by this tiger. So with this news, they changed their plan. They would now have 2 teams of 4 men each tracking the tiger. The plan being that as one team tracked, the other would rest, and then catch up to the next known location to start tracking from again.
Again, they did this for days. Tracking this tiger who seemed to be just ahead of them and completely out of reach at the same time.
Finally, on December 21, nearly 3 weeks after Markov had been killed, they found the tracks were showing a weakening animal. The front right paw that had been held clear of the snow was now dragging, but the men still felt like they were too far behind it.
But, as they crossed a road and located the tracks on the other side, one of Trush’s men, Pionka crouched near the prints and gently pressed his hand into the paw print. And it was in that moment that everything changed.
The print was still emitting warmth. The tiger was somewhere just ahead of them. Trush, Pionka and a third man, Shibnev brought their rifles to their shoulders and proceeded forward into a clearing. After a few minutes, Shibnev had a gut feeling that he couldn’t press away.
He calmly suggested they spread out, and just as the trio settled in several steps away from each other, with Trush in the center, a tiger exploded out of some brush, directly at Trush.
Trush was able to get off two shots before the tiger knocked him to the ground, but it was Pionka and Shibnev that made the difference.
Because of Shibnev’s suggestion to spread out, this put them in a very lucky position, where both Pionka and Shibnev, who were flanking Trush, were able to take shots at the tiger without also putting the other man in the background.
Between the two, 11 shots were fired and at 12:35 pm the tiger hit the ground and the momentum carried him into a roll and past where Trush fell. Sadness seemed to fill the silence as Trush picked himself up off the ground and looked at what a magnificent creature the tiger was.
The tiger was extremely underweight as indicated by the ribs that clearly showed through the russet orange and black stripes of fur. Its powder white belly and chest held fur so soft Trush understood the reason why people would want the pelt.
Its eyes were slanted and exaggerated by black fur outlining them like he had put makeup on, and though the tiger would never breathe again, it held so much power and strength that the men stalled on what to do.
Finally, though, they carefully loaded up the tiger’s body and brought it in for the conclusion of this case.
It was after the fact that Trush had his own wounds addressed, with claw marks on his back, arms and thigh he sought out bandages and found that the wound on his thigh was so deep it would require stitches.
For whatever reason, a necropsy was not officially performed, but in their investigation they found that this tiger had been shot many times, and by different weapons.
The Tiger was delivered to Arseniev Museum where it was stuffed and put on display. I tried to find information to confirm that it was still there, but couldn’t find anything conclusive. So it at least was on display if it is not still.
For many cultures in the Taiga, tigers are an animal to be respected, and to give honor to. And it is also understood that you do not take from a tiger, for it will seek revenge by taking life from you. And if you take the life of a tiger, other tigers would kill you.
While impossible to prove, many agree that this is what happened here. When Markov shot the tiger and then stole from it’s kill, the Amba, or the dark side of the Tiger, took hold of the animals mind and sought out Markov for revenge.
With the knowledge now that the Tiger had been shot by so many different guns, one can theorize that Markov, maybe, wasn't the instigator here. But instead, the Tiger had finally had enough of being shot at. Maybe the Tiger decided to take control back on his habitat.
Or maybe, this tiger had been shot so many times because it was the one who sought vengeance for other tigers that had been poached. This tiger was the balancing force. His Amba had already been ignited, and it took Trush to bring him down.
And while in this case, some men might feel that they hold the power over nature, I can guarantee that the men who faced this tiger as it leap at them, teeth bared and claws out, had a much different thought running through their head.
Sources:
https://www.npr.org/2010/09/14/129551459/the-true-story-of-a-man-eating-tigers-vengeance
Radioboston
The Tiger, a True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant
https://conservewildcats.org/resources/amur-tiger-facts/
