On the edge of a lush forest in Coastal Siberia,
a hunter is on the prowl.
Terney, A small town in Far East Russia.
This is no longer a place of exile,
but today's Siberians must eke out a hard living,
trapping, fishing, and logging.
They live on one of the last frontiers -
surrounded by a vast and largely untamed wilderness.
And still, out there somewhere, a legend lives.
A creature of fearful power and stunning beauty.
It is the biggest cat on earth... the Siberian tiger.
Today wildlife biologists seek to study the tiger
and perhaps to save it.
About three hundred Siberian tigers survive in the wild.
And they are perilously close to extinction.
These Russian and American scientists
must get close to one of the most dangerous animals in the world.
But while some seek the elusive tigers in the wild...
one Russian scientist is studying them in captivity:
Mating and hunting.
Made for Siberia,
this splendid cat can sprint across the snows at fifty miles an hour.
Magnificent. Mysterious.
Highly dangerous and highly endangered.
This is the great Siberian - The Tiger of the Snow.
A vast stretch of forest blankets Russia
with a fourth of the world's timber reserves.
Until recently the Siberian Tiger thrived here in secure isolation.
Under the strict dictates of the old Soviet system,
the tiger was protected.
But today, enforcement is lax.
Rampant poaching has dramatically reduced
the population of tigers in the wild.
In the Asian medicine market,
everything from the eyes to the tail is valued
for its legendary curative powers.
The magnificent coat alone might fetch ten thousand dollars.
But poachers aren't the only threat.
The tiger's habitat,
part of the largest natural forest in the world,
is rapidly disappearing.
It's being cut at a rate of ten million acres a year.
When authorities confiscate a pelt from the poachers
it must be destroyed so it will never find its way to market.
Recalling a poet's famous words...
"Tyger, Tyger burning bright in the forests of the night..."
The coast of Eastern Siberia.
The Siberian tiger once ranged across much of the Asian continent.
Once they numbered in the thousands.
Now, only some three hundred survive
in a narrow band of mountains on the Sea of Japan.
The Siberia of legend is a frozen wasteland.
In fact, parts of the forest are temperate - even subtropical.
Here, Russian and American scientists
are seeking to study wild Siberian tigers
in a last-ditch effort to save them.
Dr. Maurice Hornocker, an American big cat authority,
has brought desperately needed technology to this crucial effort.
"Yeah, that's good, too."
In the past, Russian scientists could study the tigers only in winter,
when their tracks could be followed in the snow.
Now, with radio tracking devices,
the elusive cats can be studied sight-unseen - and year-round.
"My first work with cats,
with the mountain lions in North America, in Idaho,
everyone said it couldn't be done - and I've always liked a challenge.
We've used the tiger population as target species
but we've studied the entire ecosystem.
Because of the immense area that the tiger needs to exist
defines entire watersheds, entire systems
that the prey must also utilize.
So you can literally define an entire ecosystem
by studying a big cat."
The scientists pick up a radio signal from a tiger
somewhere in the thick forest below.
In fact, it's a number of tigers.
And incredibly, they're out in the open.
Siberian tigers are so rare and elusive
that even a fleeting glimpse like this
is a landmark event for the scientists.
"When we saw that female and those cubs
on its lakeshore - wide open view - first time
that a female Siberian tiger and her cubs had ever been observed
and photographed from the air -
it was one of the most thrilling events in my professional career."
Hornocker's team has tracked some dozen tigers by radio,
trying to determine such essential facts
as their range and distribution.
At the field lab of the Hornocker Wildlife Institute,
Maurice is briefed by Dale Miquelle,
who's been coordinating the field study for the past three years.
"...we've got five females
that we've got good information on their home ranges.
Um, we've got olga, the four,
first female we captured who's now in a home range
that only includes a little piece of the reserve, actually,
um, and then we've got..."
Together with their Russian colleagues,
they need to quickly establish a management plan for the tigers.
"The, one of the things that's interesting about all of this
is that all these animals travel outside the boundaries of the reserve
so, even though the reserve is vast,
it's not large enough to maintain these females
in their entire home range."
Time is running out.
Even now, logging roads skirt the reserve,
where only some twenty tigers roam over 1300 square miles.
The researchers receive word
that a tiger has been caught in one of their snares...
a chance to add a new animal to their study group.
Bart Schleyer and Dr. Hornocker prepare to sedate the tiger.
"I don't see her."
There is no way of Knowing how securely the tiger is trapped.
He could suddenly pull free
and then they would have only a few seconds to save themselves.
A tranquilizer dart should quiet the tiger down.
Still, the dosage required is always in doubt.
Too much endangers the tigers. Too little, the researchers.
It's a three-year-old male.
When fully grown, at about age six,
he'll weigh six hundred pounds or more.
But even now he's an armful.
"This is about all we can do, guys. He's just too heavy. This is good."
They carry the tiger to better ground.
"Gonna lubricate his eyes."
His eyes must be artificially lubricated
since the blink response is sedated.
"Let's get this snare off."
These massive jaws can crack the spine of a wild boar
with a single bite.
"Young male tiger."
Its feet are like thickly padded snowshoes... with retractable claws!
"Boy, he's a beautiful animal."
"Yeah, gorgeous."
The radio collar allows them to track the tiger
and help answer some crucial questions:
How much territory do the tigers require?
How many elk and deer and boar?
How do they react to human encroachment?
Suddenly, the tiger is having trouble breathing.
They desperately try to revive him.
"I'm gonna give him something."
"And someone should keep..."
"His eyes are moving."
"Yeah, but his breaths are real low."
"Give it to him."
"That collar's cut, Maurice? That collar's cut?
'Cause we might have a cat that comes up real quick"
The tiger must be given a stimulant.
Slowly he resumes his normal breathing rate.
"Yeah, he's breathing.
I think the danger's passed.
Whew, man, that was...
"Yeah."
The biologists must now take their samples hastily...
before the great beast fully awakens.
They're reluctant to lose sight of him
before he's safely on his feet - but also eager not to be in his way.
Now at a safe distance,
the team receives a signal from the radio collar.
The tiger is up and about... and on the prowl again.
In another part of the reserve,
the team is concerned about the signal from a tigress named olga.
She was the very first collared with a radio.
Olga, it appears, has remained in the same area for a long time,
a sign that she may be dead -
or that she has found a den and given birth.
Dr. Evgeny Smirnov, Russian tiger specialist,
determines that olga is, in fact, moving about her den site.
The researchers decide
they'll attempt to enter the den to earmark the cubs.
They'll need to wait until night
when the tigress should be out hunting.
Hopefully, far from home.
"I asked if he thought, uh, it would be dangerous
or we'd, we'd be in trouble if we went there and he said,
'of course, it'd be dangerous, there's only one variation there,
to approach when she's not there,
because it's simply too dangerous to make an approach
with the, the mother present."'
"He said, 'Thank God,
we have the telemetry equipment to check on whether or not olga is there
and so we Know, exactly, when she's left the den site.
Without that it, it'd simply be a, a suicide mission to walk in there.'
The fading radio signal indicates that olga has left her den.
But if she returns she would probably attack instantly.
They test flares they hope would drive olga off.
Protecting a den is one of the rare circumstances
when a Siberian will turn man-killer.
Night is the time when tigers are most alert and aggressive.
Their night vision is far superior to humans.
The signal from olga - once faint -
is getting louder.
The team must quickly be in and out of the den.
"Yeah this is it. This is it, Bart."
"Yeah, yeah, we've got the spot.
"Do you see a cat?"
"Yeah."
Gloves soaked with tiger urine are worn
so the mother will not detect their intrusion and reject her cubs.
"Get away."
It's a healthy male.
Two months old, the cub already weighs about 13 pounds.
"Dale, I'm still getting a signal
and it's really not that weak right now,
we're probably going to have to hurry, if you can."
Unlike other cats, tiger kittens never learn to purr.
An ear tag is inserted for future identification.
They christen the cub Sasha.
"I'm getting a signal, we're going to have to hurry,
she's back, she's come back over the ridge."
Their daring has set a new precedent.
For the first time ever,
scientists have examined and returned a cub to a den in the wild.
In towns and villages throughout coastal Siberia,
people have learned to live with the idea of tigers.
But attacks have happened and some are afraid.
In the village of Guyvaron,
however, one man is happy to have tigers in his own backyard.
Maurice Hornocker and Howard Quigley
are working with a Russian biologist
who has two orphaned cubs in captivity.
"That's a big male tiger."
Victor Yudin has raised the cubs from infancy.
Victor is the author of a definitive natural history of the Russian wolf.
But he soon learned that Kuchur, the tiger...
...and Niurka, the tigress, are different animals indeed.
"To study tigers in captivity is absolutely necessary,
because many of their biological traits cannot be learned in the wild.
Comparing the results of the tiger studies
that were done in captivity and in the wild
helps us to develop the methods of how to preserve the tiger
as a species in reserves like Sikhote-Alin."
The young tigers have outgrown their cages,
and so, with the support of the Hornocker Wildlife Institute
an enclosure is built in the adjacent woods.
Though a far cry from the hundreds of square miles
a tiger in the wild would roam,
these six acres will provide the young captives
with the opportunity to run and hunt
- and hopefully - even mate and have cubs.
But there are neighbors in the area.
Victor Knows the importance of keeping them well informed.
Especially now,
when the tigers will soon be turned loose into the enclosure.
So he brings local school children to the compound.
"Villagers often come to see the tigers.
They often ask me: Why keep tigers in this enclosure
since it's so different from life in the wild?"
"I explain to them that there are limitations
to what we can and cannot learn
from observing tigers the way we do in the wild,
by simply following tracks through the snow.
Afterwards, when people realize that it's not just for fun,
that it's serious work they look at me in admiration,
as if I were a superman, I guess."
The day has come when - for the first time -
the tigers will step into the natural world they were intended to rule.
No one Knows how they will react to their new enclosure.
For Victor, it's an especially anxious moment,
for he hopes the enclosure will be home to these tigers
for the rest of their lives.
The male, Kuchur, steps boldly out.
For the first time... the light through the trees,
the smell of grass and leaf, the feel of the soft earth.
Niurka, the female, is unsure of all this -
and even tries to close the gate.
But soon, curiosity overcomes caution.
To Yudin's surprise,
Kuchur begins to feel a little frisky and tries to mate.
But Niurka will have no part of it.
For her, the time has not yet come.
Exhilarated by their freedom,
they soon vanish into their little private forest.
To feed his feline charges, Dr. Yudin collects road kill.
Victor feels he Knows the mood of his tigers so well
he can risk entering the enclosure.
In the wild, most attacks on humans occur
when they invade a tiger's territory or when cubs are threatened.
Unlike Bengal tigers, Siberians have never been Known to hunt man.
As the tigers settle into their enclosure,
Dr. Yudin begins his observations and controlled experiments.
He hopes to learn which behaviors are innate
and which would need to be taught to captive tigers
before they could be released into the wild.
Tigers live in a world of feast or famine.
Still, Kuchur must wait his turn.
Dr. Yudin notices it's the female who feeds first.
With the coming of fall,
the first brisk winds blow in from the Siberian Arctic.
As if designed for these autumn colors,
the tigers blend with the landscape.
In the wild, their coloration becomes lighter
as winter approaches, anticipating snow.
Dr. Yudin confronts one more problem
that makes the study of tiger behavior so difficult.
The tiger is largely a creature of the dark
With their extraordinary night vision,
Kuchur and Niurka come fully alive only after sunset.
Recently, they've begun to roam restlessly in the dark
Victor wonders if night has awakened an instinctive urge to hunt.
When he releases a small rabbit in the enclosure,
he quickly learns the answer.
After several weeks,
the tigers have established their territory in the enclosure.
How would they react to another of their own species?
Yudin and Hornocker set up an experiment
involving a full-sized model tiger.
"Okay. A little more."
"I'm interested to see what you think of this, Victor.
Is that as big as Kuchur?"
"Yes..."
"These will match right up on the right side.
You got that back there?"
"Yeah, it's good."
"Yeah, that's a good fit.
Okay, let's see what it looks like standing up."
Victor's dogs are convinced.
They immediately recognize an arch enemy.
Tigers in the wild are solitary animals and fiercely territorial.
Is this behavior innate or learned?
And, if innate, how soon does it develop?
The reaction to an intruder by the captive-raised tigers
may help provide an answer.
The scale model is covered with tiger urine,
the scent that establishes territory.
Recordings of tiger calls will be played into the enclosure.
The stage is set.
Kuchur, the male, is curious.
He spends hours observing this strange creature.
But by light of day, Kuchur keeps his distance.
It's only overnight that the researchers discover
the tigers' real attitude towards the intruder.
Every shred of color has been ripped from the model's skin.
Only when the model no longer looked like a tiger,
did Kuchur leave it alone.
The defense of his territory is already a powerful instinct.
It was the long Siberian winter that created the tigers of the snow,
demanding robust size, padded paws and thick fur.
But it is also winter when they are hunted,
when they are most easily seen... this time by a scientist.
"We've had to develop and evolve all our techniques here.
No one had ever worked with Siberian tigers before.
So, we utilized foot-snaring to capture the tiger
and it's worked very successfully.
But, some of them are becoming very trap-shy,
some of them have become very, uh, difficult to capture...
So in order to maintain the continuity of our data collection,
in order to keep track of certain individuals
we've had to utilize helicopters."
The hunt begins to re-collar certain tigers.
The information the collars provide is critical
to understanding the boundaries required for the tiger's survival.
Their territories are extensive.
Females may range up to two hundred square miles,
males perhaps five hundred.
Losing contact with a study animal is their greatest fear.
Each one is precious to the scientists.
"The collars we put on animals last about two to two-and-a-half years
and then the batteries, lithium batteries run out,
so they simply need to be replaced.
Once we've invested two years in an animal gathering information,
that animal becomes very valuable to us because it has a history.
And the longer we can maintain contact with an animal,
the more we learn about its life-history patterns:
How often it has young, how long they live,
its whole life history."
The pilot spots something below.
It's a wild boar running for its life.
And in pursuit a tiger.
Tigers miss most of their prey.
This time the helicopter provides a distraction, saving the boar.
The tiger is not amused.
Eventually they pick up the strong signal of another familiar tiger.
It is olga, mother of the cub found in the den.
The helicopter quickly searches the area hoping to spot her cub, Sasha.
And Sasha is there - no longer a small cub, but thriving well.
The young are raised by the mother alone.
Sasha will stay with her for eighteen to twenty months
until it's time to establish his own home range.
The search continues for Kouza
a young male who has outgrown his radio collar.
Kouza is just beginning to mark off his territory
and it's difficult to Know the extent of his range.
Tranquilizing a Siberian tiger is not an exact science.
The size of the tiger, its mood -
and the placement of the dart can influence the drug's effectiveness.
Always, out of concern for the tiger,
the team tries to inject a minimal amount.
After long hours and much precious fuel,
the tiger is spotted.
In pursuit, the helicopter must fly very low over dense forest -
a dangerous maneuver.
It's a far cry from hunting on foot for Bart Schleyer.
"There's usually just a real narrow opportunity to dart
and sometimes there's a limb in the way
and there's been a number of times
when I probably could have gotten a dart into an animal,
but I'm too worried about a deflection of the dart
and having the, the dart deflect into a improper placement in the animal
which would injure it, which we don't want.
So, I'm real, real stressed by trying to get a proper hit on an animal."
As the tiger moves deeper into the forest,
the helicopter follows so closely it almost touches the tree tops.
"The pilots we're using, I'm real confident in the pilots
because you are operating real close to tree level
and you just hope that the pilots can see what's going on,
around behind them particularly with their back rotor
and particularly the other day when we were in close on one of the tigers,
there was a conifer tree
that was actually almost butted right up against the helicopter."
The first shot is a clean hit.
They hover patiently waiting for the tranquilizer to take effect.
But they can't wait too long - for they're running low on fuel.
Bart fires another dart into the tiger.
Most big cats need two doses.
And the second one appears to take effect.
Bart and Rybin Nikolai must quickly be landed.
This too is a dangerous maneuver.
But they can't leave the tiger sedated for long.
The pilot is very concerned now.
They must refuel.
He radios Bart to abort the mission.
But Bart insists - for the tiger's well being -
they must remain below and finish the job now.
The helicopter races back to refuel.
As they slowly approach the tiger, their worst fears are realized.
The tiger is up and moving.
The dosage was insufficient.
Still, they must get a closer look to make sure he's all right.
They proceed with caution
Knowing they are intruding
in a fierce young tiger's newly claimed territory.
Kouza appears groggy but otherwise all right.
But he's much too dangerous to follow.
Now they can only await the helicopter's return.
And hope the young tiger has seen enough of them.
For now, the tiger has eluded them,
but at least they Know where he can be found.
Eventually, he'll be located and fitted with a new collar.
At last, they are brought aboard -
to the relative safety of a helicopter hovering in the tree-tops.
Not long after, they spot a tigress named Marivana.
She is very aggressive -
and even climbs a tree to attack the helicopter.
She only provides a better target for Bart Schleyer.
Unlike the larger male, a single dose sedates the tigress quickly.
"Let's take blood and that's about it..."
The old collar is measured against the new one -
which is given an extra notch for growth.
They carefully monitor her heart rate and respiration.
"Where's that? 10?"
"That's right..."
Mission accomplished.
The new collar will provide crucial data for at least another two years.
Not far from the cold, forbidding wild,
the success of the venture is celebrated - Russian style!
It's also Bart Schleyer's birthday.
For American and Russian alike
it's a camaraderie born of years of shared dangers and shared dreams.
At Victor Yudin's compound winter has transformed the enclosure.
The Siberian winter seems to invigorate the captive tigers.
This is truly the season of the Tigers of the Snow.
As Victor Yudin observes,
Kuchur, the male, continues to stake out his territory,
spraying the trees with his scent.
In what is called a 'flehmen' the female tests the air for his scent.
Then it's Kuchur's turn to detect if his mate is in heat...
And she is.
Niurka, the female, initiates the coupling.
And so the mating period begins.
"If we succeed in getting young cubs it would be great,
because then we can develop the best methods
for returning the young tigers back into the wild.
We'll try to bring them up in natural conditions
so they will more easily adapt to joining the wild tiger population
here in the reserve."
As for a successful mating,
all Dr. Yudin can do is hope for results.
Victor's wife, Lena, has a special relationship with the tigers.
She's nurtured them since they were cubs.
When they must be brought in at night
because of the dangers of poaching,
only their Babushka can lure them home.
Over the next few days, the tigers breed often.
Sometimes dozens of times a day.
At last, the breeding ends, and Niurka moves into her den.
She should give birth in about a hundred days.
Springtime in Siberia.
Dr. Hornocker receives word from Victor Yudin
that Niurka has given birth.
But something's wrong.
Victor's observed that the mother is not taking care of her cubs.
This is not uncommon when big cats give birth in captivity.
"Does Victor think she's fed them at all?"
"Probably not."
"Then we better go in and look, Victor."
They isolate the mother, Niurka, so they can safely approach the den.
One of the cubs is up and about but looks hungry and unkempt.
The other cub is barely moving and Victor is clearly concerned.
"How is he?"
"Yeah, oh yeah, the poor little guy."
Suddenly, the cub stops breathing.
Victor rushes it inside where he will try to revive it.
It appears the mother has neither groomed nor nursed her cubs
and this one is near death.
With infinite patience, Victor massages the heart.
Hoping - against all odds - to bring the cub back to life.
The mortality rate of Siberian tiger cubs can be up to thirty percent.
With so few born in the wild,
the survival of captive cub is critical to the species.
One cub is lost,
but her brother - under Victor's tender nursing - recuperates quickly.
He's named the cub Globus -
for a world that cares about him,
even if his own mother hasn't learned to.
Eventually Globus will be brought to the United States
as part of a captive breeding program.
When he is, he'll be following other cubs,
orphaned in Siberia and sent by Dr. Hornocker
to the snows of omaha, Nebraska.
They're now part of the world's most successful breeding program
for large predators.
The tigers are bred here
with the goal of returning the cubs back to the wild.
But what kind of environment will await them?
Back in Russia,
Dr. Hornocker strives to educate Siberia's future caretakers.
"If we're to save these big carnivores as the world population increases,
we must convince the younger generation
that it's worthwhile conserving them.
It's always so rewarding to me
and gratifying to see how children accept this.
They really love these big animals.
They want to save them.
And if we can convince them
that it's in their best interest then it's to their advantage and to ours."
Soon, much of this magnificent forest -
the Siberian tiger's last domain -
may be cut down for a world hungry for lumber.
But the years of difficult and dangerous study have given birth
to a plan to save the forest... by saving the tiger in the wild.
Selecting the tiger as the umbrella species to be saved
means that the forest surrounding the reserve must also be protected.
But in a land of political uncertainty,
there are no guarantees.
Poised on the edge of extinction,
the tiger of the snow evokes an old Russian proverb:
Hope is the last to die.