National Park After Dark - Revenge of the Tiger: Bikin National Park

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

In the winter of 1997 a man-eating tiger terrorized a remote village in the Russian Far East. This wasn’t a defensive attack — the tiger was hunting specific humans, with eerie patience and purpose. What followed is one of the most chilling wildlife stories ever documented.For a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodesListen to Watch Her Cook on Apple and Spotify! Follow us on InstagramFor the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to the week’s partners!Liquid IV: Use our code NPAD at checkout to get 20% off your first order.  IQBAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products and free shippingHello Fresh: Use our link to get up to 10 FREE meals and a free item for life.BetterHelp: National Park After Dark is sponsored by BetterHelp. Get 10% off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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When we venture into the wild, understanding the behavior of the region's apex predator can provide both safety and a sense of control. Knowledge truly is power. In grizzly country, we know that wild bears can be dangerous under certain conditions, they generally prefer to avoid humans. That's why we take safety courses, carry bear spray, hiking groups, make noise, and store food properly to avoid them as well as we can. In Mountain Lion territory, we understand these predators are elusive, but still keep dogs

leash to avoid an unnecessary encounter. In the bayous or Everglades, we stay out of the water, knowing alligators and crocodiles can ambush and kill prey there, including people. These truths may seem frightening, but they're also comforting, because wild animals tend to follow predictable behaviors. When we understand those behaviors, we can prepare, adapt, and minimize conflict. But what happens when those behaviors start to shift? Habitat loss, climate change, and human encroachment are disrupting ecosystems and altering animal behavior. Species that once avoided us are now forced into closer contact, and in some cases are beginning to see humans as easy. prey. When the rules change and behavior becomes unpredictable, how do we stay safe? And more importantly,

are we responsible? And what will it take to restore the balance in nature? Welcome to National Park After Dark. Oh, honey, I am so stoked. I am so freaking pumped. We are diving into an animal attack episode, which we haven't done in a while. So I am also very, I've been wanting to know about this story for a while and tell it. So I'm excited to be doing it. I'm so happy. By the way, everyone, I'm Danielle. And I'm Cassie telling the story. And this is National Park After Dark, which you probably know. Hopefully. If not, welcome. Yeah. So I am so excited you're doing this story because, number one, for people who maybe don't listen in order or this is your first time or whatever, A couple weeks ago, I did a story off of a book called The Golden Spruce, which was written by the same author of the book you just base this episode off of. Yes.

Which we didn't plan either. Weird synchronicity. It's John Vallion. Valiant. Yeah. John Valiant. The Tiger by John Valiant. If you haven't read it.

It is a, this story is just, it's incredible and it's really interesting. And it is about a tiger attack that happened in Russia. And this one, we've talked about tiger attacks on this podcast before, but this one is a little bit different because people will really dive into the story. But this tiger seemed like it was angry and vengeful against a person. And it kind of veered from normal tiger behavior, which has been why this tiger story in particular has gained a lot of attention. Okay. I'm super stoked to learn more about it because I know the very basics from, like well over a year ago when you first got that book on your shelf.

It's just been sitting there. It has. It has. Like, please fucking tell the story. Sorry for swearing. Trying to stop. Sorry for swearing. I'm sorry again for cursing.

I'm trying to stop. And I just, it's in my blood. It's like, I can't help it. Well, it's been a long time coming. But before we dive into it, I do want to give a warning. I wrote this down. I said, warning. This episode is about an animal attack.

there will be violence against wildlife, dogs, and humans. At times throughout the story, it will be graphic. Listener discretion is advised. Okay. I'm advised. Let's go. Perfect. So going into this, as I mentioned, this story takes place in Russia, which you might be

surprised to learn that Russia was the first country to formally recognize the tiger as a protected species. Many people don't often think of tigers in Russia, but the country sprawls more than 4,000 miles to the eastern coast of Asia, sharing borders with Kazakhstan, and, and Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, and North Korea, and in the Russian Far East forest, the Amur tiger, also known as the Siberian tiger, is the apex predator. When you look at an Amor tiger, it's easy to see why. They can weigh up to 600 pounds and measure up to 10 feet or three meters from nose to tail. They can also leap as far as 30 feet or nine meters horizontally and jump more than 12 feet

straight up into the air, and yet they move through the forest in near silence. In the words of one native hunter, they said, quote, you know he is there, but you cannot see him. He hides so well that one starts thinking he is invisible like a god. Despite their impressive strength and stealth, by the 1940s, Amor tigers had been hunted to near extinction, with fewer than 40 individuals remaining in the wild. Much of this was due to their monetary value in Chinese medicine, where tiger parts have been used for centuries. In traditional Chinese medicine, tiger bones are believed to treat conditions such as arthritis, rheumatism, ulcers, and malaria. The bones are often grounded into powder or soaked in wine to make medicinal tonics. Tiger whiskers are worn as protective

charms or used to sootheas toothaches, while other parts, such as the eyes and brain, are thought to improve epilepsy or even laziness in a person. The tiger penis is marketed as an aphrodisiac, and the skin is considered a luxury item used in clothing or displayed as a symbol of wealth and power. Because of the obvious problems with this, and overhunting them, to stop them from going fully extinct, the Soviet Union made killing tigers a federal offense back in 1947. This law was the first of its kind. And though the enforcement wasn't very consistent, it still led to a decrease in tiger poaching. The wild tiger population in the Russian Far East rebounded until the early 1990s. In December 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and Russia's economy was turned completely upside down. It was a period of

intense economic hardship and instability. Many villagers in the Russian Far East were already isolated and poor, but communism had meant guaranteed employment. When the Soviet Union fell, central planning and state subsidies disappeared overnight. Millions of Russian people lost their jobs, along with heating, food access, and infrastructure support. On top of widespread unemployment, out-of-control inflation made their money essentially worthless. Barter economies replaced cash economies and poaching in the Russian Far East skyrocketed again, not out of greed, but this time out of desperation for food. This region is part of the taiga, also known as the boreal forest. Unrelated to the word tiger, taiga is a type of biome like the savanna or rainforest. It's actually

the largest land biome on earth spanning across North America, Europe, and Asia. The taiga is characterized by vast converse forests, think pine, spruces, and larches. The winters and the taiga are long and cold. The summers are short and mild. It's kind of, actually, the landscape there kind of reminded me of New England a little bit. It has like very similar extended winters for sure, but the actual forest themselves kind of resemble New England a bit. You just gave me a flashback. So I, there are very specific things I remember in great detail about like childhood and school. But for the most part, I kind of like blacked out a lot of that out. But for this, the taiga I did in sixth grade Miss Hunter's class. I'll never forget, I did a project on the taiga. And I can remember like the, what was it, like the three like sided boards. Oh, yeah. I remember those well.

Yeah. And I did that. And I was assigned the taiga. So like I was an expert on the taiga for like a hot second in Miss Hunter's sixth grade class. And it's also funny. I remember another vivid memory of that class was walking in a. can still see the exact setup of the classroom and seeing the formula C6H1206 on the board. And I will never forget that formula. That's so funny. It's just so weird. There's some things that just reach your brain and stay there. Yeah. But yeah, it was like really loved the Taiga for a second and knew all about it.

Fun. So I'm glad we're back. We're back. I hope this is a full circle moment. You're reminiscing. Quebec. That's so funny. Well, in Siberia, you might know this. Maybe you should tell this part. I am a tagged expert. You're, who, whoever thought that I would not surprise you any longer after however many years of friendship. I know. And, you know, sometimes things that you learn back in elementary school end up being important later in life.

I couldn't agree more. You can tell me. I'll probably know, but you can tell me anyway. Yeah, just in case. Yeah. Just think for other people listening. In Siberia, the tiger covers 2.3 million square miles, accounting for a quarter of the world's total wood inventory and more than half of its conoverous forests. Siberia's taiga is also known as, quote, one of the planet's biggest carbon sinks and is essential in helping to mitigate excess carbon in the atmosphere, which is linked to one of the chief causes of climate change. The story that I'm telling today took place during the hard time in December 1997 in a territory in the southeastern corner of Russia called Primorsky. I'm so sorry if someone is Russian-ish-in-to-this. I literally have pronunciations, but there's accents that go with them and trying my past. Another fun fact about me because I just would love to tell you. I think you actually already know this.

If there was, if I could wake up tomorrow knowing another language and being fluent in it, it would be Russian. Yeah. I have heard you say that before. It's such a, I feel like it's such an intimidating language. Like when you hear someone speak Russian, you're like, oh. It commands respect. Yeah. Immediately. And that's, I think, what the root of it is. That's why. Yeah. And there's something like dark and mysterious about it. And yeah, it's definitely a mysterious language. Yeah. Okay, go on. Well, in the eastern corner of Russia, allegedly called Primorski-Kri-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-T. But despite their massive-MMeg to the west by China and to the east by the sea of Japan, and tigers had long been featured in the folklore of the region's indigenous people. But despite their massive size, many locals had actually... actually never seen one. There's a widely held belief that if you left the tigers alone,

then they would leave you alone. There's a whole book about the story that I'm telling today, of course, um, the tiger, but in it, uh, the author John Valiant, which you mentioned before, wrote, such was the stability of human tiger relations in that the possibility of a person getting attacked, much less eaten by a tiger was literally laughable, like getting hit by a meteorite. Um, so that was how much that they really believed. that there was no interaction pretty much at one point between. In this specific region we're talking about. Yeah, so basically in this area, there was almost no interaction and people barely ever saw tigers.

But in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, as poverty deepened and more people turned to hunting and foraging in the forest to survive, encounters between humans and tigers became more frequent as both species struggled to access the same dwindling resources. At the same time, widespread logging in the tiga, both legal and, you know, illegal, was transforming the landscape. Deforestation had huge impacts up and down the ecosystem, jeopardizing the habitats of tigers, humans, and their shared prey. The harsh weather conditions of the winter of 1997 was an especially tough season for big game like wild boar, leaving both human hunters and tigers hungrier and more desperate than usual. Legally, all hunting required registered

firearms and a valid permit, but for many, those were luxuries they couldn't afford. On top of that, poaching tigers offered a powerful temptation. Rumors swirled that black market buyers, especially from China, would pay up to $50,000 for a single tiger. This was a life-changing sum in a time of economic collapse. In fact, one local nickname for tigers in the 90s was Toyota because people would joke that that's what you could buy if you poached one. Which, I mean, I don't own a, I've never bought a $50,000 Toyota, but okay. I mean, it seems like a weird flex when you can't, yeah, it seems like a weird flex when you can't even afford food. Maybe you could buy two Toyotas.

Yeah. My first car was a Toyota. It was a 1993 Toyota Camry and I bought it for $1,000. Wow. You could buy 50 of those. It could. It could have bought 50 of them and blown the clutch out on all 50 of them. But alas, I just had one to do that on.

Okay, well, within this region, the specific village where this story unfolds is called Sublonia. It's a tiny settlement deep in the taiga near the Beacon River, made up of unpainted log houses. In the winter, after the sun sets in the mid-afternoon, almost no one ventures into the darkness outside, and the village can almost seem abandoned during those times. And it nearly was, because of the weather conditions. There are no exact population figures from the 90s, but it's likely that no more than 100 or so people lived there. Nearly all of them were hunters, a mix of indigenous groups, including the Udegi, the Nani, and the Orochi, each with their own languages and cultural traditions, as well as European Russian transplants.

One of those transplants from Western Russia was a man named Vladimir Markov. Markov was short and sturdily built, with prominent cheekbones, somber eyes, and a strong jaw line. his serious looking face contrasted with his infectious sense of humor and quick wit. He was born in a province on the far western edge of the country, bordering Poland and Lithuania, just six years after the end of the World War II. This area was formerly German territory that bombed heavily during the war and remained in ruins throughout Markov's childhood. In 1969, just two weeks after his 18th birthday, he received a draft notice requiring him to report

to the Russian Far East. To get here, he had to travel 5,000 miles, about a quarter of a way around the globe, via the Trans-Siberian Railway. The journey would have taken two to three weeks non-stop, and at this point it must have felt like crossing into a different dimension, because unlike the city he had grown up, that was partially in ruins, the wilderness that he arrived in was sparsely populated and had a land of small villages, outcast, exiles, and the people there had a deep connection. to the land. So he went from the city straight into the wilderness. In the words of the author John Valiant, he wrote, evidence suggests that Markov found this environment more

liberating than frightening. And in Soviet Russia, liberty was a rare thing. The Siberian wilderness and eventually the village, in particular, became Markov's home. Flash forward to the winter of 1997, he was among the many villagers living off of the land

hunting in the Tiga forest to survive. The hand-to-mouth lifestyle along with a lifetime of heavy drinking and smoking, had taken its toll on his physical health. His eyes were yellow with jaundice and bloodshot, and he walked with a permanent limp. He was only around 50 years old, but the life expectancy for men in Russia at the time

was only around 58 years old. After nearly 30 years in the Far East, he had become an avid beekeeper and a capable hunter. Being a hunter in the taiga meant spending up to four months at a time in total isolation in the woods during, quote, hunting season with only your hunting dog or dogs as a companion. The weather is consistently below negative 30 degrees and it's dark for most of the day. Some Siberian hunters describe experiencing hallucinations by the end of the hunting season.

One said, quote, it's an ordeal and a drug at the same time. The extreme isolation also means there are no witnesses to your behavior. Markov was rumored among some local hunters to have had encounters with tigers before. But given how desperately poor he was, it's unlikely that he actually ever poached and sold one. His guns were unregistered, his bullets were homemade, and he hunted to survive not-for-profit. So it seems like he never sold a tiger to China to cash in on the $50,000. Yeah. Despite the hardships of his lifestyle, he never lost his sense of humor.

In fact, it helped him forge friendships with many native hunters, including a reclusive man named Ivan Dunkai, who spent most of his life living off the forest. Heading into the 1997 hunting season, Dunkai granted Markoff permission to hunt in his part of the territory near the village. He even gave Markov the key to stay in his hunting hut, but he made one thing clear. He did not tolerate tiger poaching at all. Dunki believed in a worldview among the region's indigenous people that regarded the tiger not just as a predator, but as a sacred and godly presence in the forest. Unfortunately for Markov, he ignored his warning and would later come face to face with the consequences of that. I'm so anxious already.

And I already, I know it's coming. Kind of. It's an intense episode for sure. You should feel anxious. Tigers are so just, they're just so amazing. They're such incredible animals. And I just, I feel both so happy that I share the planet with. them but also so terrified that they exist yeah like you don't want to come across one but i'm glad

that they're here right i would but then again you know i'm not from living that safe yeah you know yeah we're not living with them but i they're such incredible it's the world is so incredible that something like a tiger could even exist yeah i know oh my god imagine okay so what the tiger looks like new england right but there's tigers walking around but there's Fucking, imagine. There's tigers in your backyard. No. Like, that's why Russian people are so intense and why they're intimidating and mysterious

because they live with tigers in a forest that looks like New Hampshire. Yeah. They're built different. They're built different. They're just built different. And I'm in awe of them. And that's why they're so strong. They have to be so strong emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically.

All because of the tigers. all because the tigers that are only in one region of the world that 80% of Russians don't live in. But that's okay. That's besides the point. That's besides the point entirely. But yeah, anyway, they're just, they're incredible. And again, I'm just like every time I see my actually have a large amount of tiger things in my house. Yeah, you have tiger curtains and a tiger rug.

I didn't even tell you. I went to an antique store the other week. and I found this beautiful tiger painting and I bought it. So I'll say, I'll like, your bathroom is tigers too, right? I'll put it like on the screen somewhere like here. Yeah. In post. But yeah, I have tiger wallpaper in my bathroom.

I have tiger curtains. I have a tiger painting. I have a tiger rug. I'm obsessed with tigers? I think you're obsessed with tigers. That's why I love this episode so much. I'm like subconsciously. obsessed with tigers. Yeah. You'll probably become more obsessed with them after this episode, too.

Okay. If I could let you get through it. I'm so sorry. I feel like I'm interrupting a lot, but... No, you're good. I love your enthusiasm. Well, in early December of 1997, Markov was out hunting with his dogs when he came across a freshly killed boar. From the markings on the carcass and the tracks in the snow, he could tell that it had been taken down by a tiger. However, his hunting dog seemed relaxed, which indicated that the tiger was most likely not nearby. Assuming the coast was clear, he decided to help himself to some of the tiger's kill. He hacked off two of the boar's legs and whatever else he could carry, stuffed the meat into his rucksack, and made the frigid track back to the cabin. At that point, he was feeling pretty lucky, especially because remember,

he's starving for food. And he just came across something he didn't even have to kill. It's already just sitting there waiting for him, like a gift, a present. A gift from the Tiger gods, yeah. Yes. Back at the cabin, he stashed a chunk of meat for himself in a food cash outside and packed the rest for trade. With a daylight left, he slung the bundle over his back and walked a few miles to a nearby road workers camp where he was known to barter meat for essentials like sugar, tea, gunpowder and tobacco. He made it back to the cabin with his goodies sometime before sunset, which in December in this part of Russia would have been as early as 4.30 p.m., which same in New England. There's so many.

the tagga is New England we've learned, yeah. Yes. It's not everyone relax, but. But tigers could live here. Reintroduce the tiger to New Hampshire. Yeah, see what happens. A petition. That's okay.

We don't even want our native species back. So don't get me started. I'm sure you'll be riled up in this episode. So anyway, he gets back sometime before 4.30. He makes some tea. He lights a cigarette. and he cooks himself a portion of the stolen boar. But he wouldn't have rested so easily if he had known what was happening back in the woods

because the Amor Tiger had returned to its kill only to find most of it gone and followed the scent to where it had been brought. For context, tigers have an exceptional sense of smell, and Markov and his dogs would have left a lot of scents behind. Tracking an unwashed cigarette-smoking man accompanied by several dogs wouldn't have posed much of a challenge. The scent of cooked bore meat drifting from the cabin likely made things even easier.

Sometime after nightfall, the tiger arrived at the hunting cabin. The first thing it found was the food cache outside where Markov had stored a chunk of stolen meat. The tiger grabbed it, dragged the meat out, and ate it. Then he crept towards the cabin. Inside the cabin, Markov was alerted to the tiger's approach by his hunting dogs who started whining and howling. Outside, the tiger began trashing the place, destroying everything with Markov sent on it.

His hunting axe, steel sauce pans, beekeeping structures, the outhouse. The tiger crushed and destroyed everything he could, all while Markov stood by the window, watching with a sinking feeling that this had to be the same tiger that he had stolen from earlier. He grew fearful as he realized that the flimsy wooden boards of the cabin wouldn't do much to keep this angry, 600-pound tiger outside, especially as he's watching it just trash everything. Because of that, he felt like he had to do something. He grabbed his gun and threw an opening carved into the door of the hunting cabin specifically for shooting game outside, Markov took his aim at the tiger and pulled the trigger.

Quickly, that was followed by the furious roar of the tiger and then the sound of thrashing before everything went silent. Markov knew that he had hit the tiger with his shot. but he also knew that he had only wounded it and he feared that it might come back. Something about this experience felt very different from other encounters he had had before because this tiger seemed like he was vengeful and angry and that he specifically had a target set on him. You know, he felt he saw him go through everything that he owned and just trash it around and he had never seen a tiger behave like that.

So he felt like this tiger was angry with him and did not like that he stole his food. I mean, I can totally see how that you come to that conclusion. Yeah. But at the same time, like, it's, I know it's like a big no-no to anthropomorphize and, like, assign, like, human emotions. Yeah. On to animals and, like, their behaviors and things like that. So, but it's so hard not to in this. It's like, okay, so what, what is it then if he's not being vengeful or angry or, like, what, you know, I'm totally open to.

And maybe he really was angry. I mean, you stole his only food. And it's already, as I mentioned before, this is already dwindling resources. There's logging, deforestation going on. This tiger just found its dinner and cashed it somewhere. You came across it and stole it. So maybe he is angry. Maybe there is something there.

But he or maybe he was just looking for more food. You know, he smelled you. He was looking for, I don't know. I don't know what it was. But if it's looking for more food, like why would it destroy inanimate? objects that have your scent on it. You're sent on it. It feels like it could.

Did it go after the hunting dogs? I didn't catch that. Or were they kind of like tucked away safely somewhere? It seems like some of them were in the house and some of them were tucked away like in a spot underneath the cabin somewhere. But the tiger does end up going after the dogs at some point. Okay. So anyway, needless to say he was pretty worried about this tiger and that night he- Needless to say. Needless to say. He's worried. He's terrified and he barely sleeps that night.

And he ended up staying hold up in this cabin from somewhere between 12 and 36 hours. It's unknown whether the events I've described so far took place on December 1st or December 2nd. So it's unknown how long exactly Markov waited out in his cabin after shooting the tiger. But it's believed somewhere between that time period of 20 or 12 to 36 hours. But what we do know is that on the morning of December 3rd, 1997, he finally mustered up the courage to leave the cabin again. He knew that the tiger was still out there, injured, maybe angry, maybe seeking revenge. He wasn't sure. But it hadn't returned since the gunshot and the dogs weren't showing signs of alarm.

So he figured that this was a safe time to go. When he left, it looked like the coast was clear, at least for the time being. While it makes sense that he would want to get out of the woods on December 3rd, what he chose to do after leaving the cabin is kind of harder to explain. He first walked about three and a half miles to the cabin of Mikhail Dunkai, who was the son of his old friend Ivan, who his cabin he was staying at. Like his father, Mikhail was a native hunter who lived off the taiga. Markov arrived shortly before noon and he was visibly upset. Mikhail offered him tea, hot food, and even suggested that he stayed the night to calm his nerves, but he refused.

Instead, he spent about half an hour chain smoking cigarettes and raving about tigers. Mikhail recalls him saying things like, quote, We should kill, destroy, and wipe out the tigers. What struck Mikhail most, though, was the look in Markov's eyes, what he later described as dead-looking. Mikhail urged him not to go back into the woods if he had angered the tiger, but once again, Markov didn't listen. After about 30 minutes, he left Mikhail's and made his way to Ivan's cabin.

He arrived a little after 4 p.m. just as the sun was beginning to set. Ivan also recalls Markov's expressing concern about the tiger. Like his son, he offered Markov some hot soup and a warm place to spend the night, but again, he refused. Even though it was fully dark out by the time he was leaving Ivan's home. From there, he trekked through the snowy forest to a logging camp about two miles from his hunting cabin. He was close friends with the men who worked at the logging camp, and he arrived later that evening.

The loggers later recalled how strange he seemed. Gone was the chatty, joke-cracking man that they were used to and knew. Instead, he was quiet, tense, and clearly very anxious. For a third time that day, he was offered a hot meal and a place to safely spend the night. And for the third time, he turned it down. Despite the darkness and the fact that he had nearly spent the entire day trudging through deep snow in negative 30-degree weather, he insisted that he couldn't stay long because he was out to search for his hunting dogs. He told the loggers he was worried they would be killed by the tiger. Markoff had at least three hunting dogs, but only one, a shaggy black mutt named Jack, was still with him. So it's unclear of what exactly transpired, because he never explained it to anyone of like where

his dogs were. But it is thought that during this tiger encounter that they might have taken off sometime after it happened or like sometime in that 12 to 36 hours. The logger's, the logger. Again, they weren't sure like what had really happened. They just knew that some of his dogs were missing. But they all remembered how worried he seemed about the dogs. And when interviewed about this interaction separately, they all said the same thing. After just a short visit, he headed back out into the blistering cold pitch black forest, fully aware that there might be an more tiger waiting for him. But he was worried about his dogs. Being concerned for his dogs could explain some of Markov's behavior that December 3rd. Or maybe it was greed.

the belief that the tiger was wounded, he could finish the job and sell its body for life-changing some, or maybe it was pride he needed to finish this confrontation that he had started. Any of these might explain why he returned to the forest, but his repeated refusal of warm food and shelter at every step along the way is still baffling. Some of the native hunters offered a different interpretation. Mikhail, Ivan Dunkai's son, believed that when Markov visited him that morning, quote, the tiger had already taken his soul. It was, he said, like hypnosis, a kind of possession that clouded Markov's judgment and pulled him towards his demise.

That's very dark and scary. But it does make you wonder, like, what, I mean. What was pulling him when he was clearly terrified? And just like the repeated, like there's something about like the over and over and over of safety. And like somebody essentially throwing you a life raft and you ignoring it. And there is something to be said, of course, like you've kind of already painted this. picture of times are tough you know for us it's not just like oh it's a dog like they're dogs and yeah he might love them they might be like an essential link like if he doesn't have his hunting dogs and that

support he might not eat like these dogs are important not just because he loves them i mean who knows what type of relationship he had with them but like they're an essential part of his livelihood and how he yeah how he makes his you know how he lives yeah that's a really good point so maybe that was it But I don't know. It just seems like, can you get other hunting dogs? Like, if they're really, even if they're all slaughtered. Like, it's your life, you know? Yeah.

Like, if the tiger has gotten them, what are you going to do? Well, that's the thing. It's just, yeah, I can understand how there's, like, a lot of question marks around this because even though I do see a world in which, like, he really wanted to get his dogs back, like, it's still, like, the most dangerous situation you could be in. It's hard because I, like, if you picture your dog and they're out. in the forest and you know that they're out there alone and cold and negative 30 degree temperatures and you love them so much you might want to go out there and try and find them. But this is also not

like a dachshund that's used to somebody's couch. Like these are like dogs that are accustomed to this. Yeah. Not saying that. And have and have a chance to survive. Right. They have some awareness of, you know, they're trained around tigers too. Like they know. Right. They're very aware of tigers. So Yeah. Yeah, I think it's hard to know, like, what his mindset was in this. Yeah. And he's going back out. Not only is it terrifying, but he knows now that there is a tiger that he thinks is vengeful and angry to begin with. Specifically at him. And now wounded. That's going to piss it off even more. I mean, come on. It's a recipe for a disaster. So scary. Yeah. There's so many things that are scary about this. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice.

Off campus, L. Every year after, The Love Hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. back into the story he heads back to the cabin and as him and his dog Jack drew closer and closer, they were unknowingly approaching the very danger that they feared. While Markov had been out, the tiger had returned and was now hiding and waiting for him. What exactly happened next is not

certain and entirely based on evidence later found at the scene. What's clear is that the tiger remained at the site. When he finally arrived, the tiger ambushed him. Evidence later showed that Markov managed to get off one shot, injuring the tiger again, and attempted to reload. But the tiger reached for him before he could fire a second round. Sometime that night, Wednesday, December 3rd, 1997, he was killed by that same tiger. And these version of events is shared by an official account, according to another very important person to this story, who I haven't mentioned yet, who is a Russian environmentalist named Yuri Truch.

Yuri Truch was 47 years old at the time and worked for the new Russian. government's environmental police in a special unit called inspection tiger. Their primary mission was to protect tigers, investigating poaching cases, enforcing wildlife laws, and prosecuting those who killed or trafficked animals illegally. But when a tiger was deemed a threat to humans, it was also inspection tiger's job to track and eliminate it. Imagine that job, such a badass job and speaking Russian at the same time. Just have it all.

The most intense person to ever. The coolest person to ever exist. Literally. Well, for this particular organization, there were six units stationed throughout the area, and Trush was the squad leader of the one closest to this village. And he was squad leader? Yeah. Oh, my God. Yep.

Don't let me ever see this man. Like, my true love awaits. Yuri Trush. Yeah. Well, like Vladimir Markov, Yuri. Trush was born on the western side of the country in European Russia. He grew up hunting with his father in the pine forest around his home village, an experience that shaped his strong sense of ethics around wildlife and hunting. He spent the first 15 years of his adult life working for

coal mining companies until an acquaintance encouraged him to join a new environmental enforcement agency. By 1997, Inspection Tiger had been operating for three years. Truche and his fellow officers were paid $400 a month in U.S. dollars, rather than, and he was. than rubles, which was the Russian money, because the money came from U.S. conservation organizations. Oh. Which I thought was a really interesting fact. And I looked it up and they had, I didn't write the number down and I should have, but they allocated like somewhere close to 700,000 U.S. dollars to this initiative to help protect tigers because they saw like how detrimental it was over there.

So they were trying to help support. And $400 was a really high wage in the region for the time. It was a very difficult and obviously very dangerous job, but it was pretty lucrative in pay. Connecting him to Markov's story in the late afternoon on Friday, December 5th, Trush got a message at his home. He got the message that there had been a tiger attack near the village and one man was dead. As the local inspection tiger squad leader, he was called in to investigate the scene and ultimately tracked down the tiger responsible. Early the next morning, Saturday, December 6th, he assembled to see.

team and set out in a surplus army truck. Deep snow and temperatures hovering around negative 30 degrees slowed their progress. A two and a half hour drive took twice as long. It wasn't until around 3 p.m. that they finally reached the scene at Ivan Dunkke's hunting cabin. There he found Markov's friends waiting. They had been there since his body was discovered and had barely slept since. Markov's body had been discovered the previous morning on Friday, December 5th by his friend

Andre, this is a hard last name, Own a Free Chook. Andre, on a free chook. You can just say his friend Andre. You don't have to put yourself through this. There's two Andres. Oh, shit. Which makes it even more confusing to the story.

Andre number one and Andre number two. There you go. There you go. Okay. Andre was also a heavy smoker and drinker. He was 10 years younger than Markov, and he looked up to him as a hunting mentor. They had plans to go ice fishing together,

so he went to meet Markov at the hunting cabin. As he approached, he noticed blood by the entrance road. Then he saw Markov's hat in the snow, and nearby he saw Tiger Tracks. He followed the tracks into the woods, spotting more pieces of his clothes scattered along the way. Devastatingly, he saw one of Markov's hunting dogs severed paws sticking out of the snow. Oh. And then he heard it. An unmistakable sound of a tiger growling.

He couldn't see the tiger or Markov's body, but the sound was enough to make him turn around and go back. to the cabin. He started a fire and sat inside, drinking tea and chain smoking cigarettes for hours, partially because he was just so stunned at what he had just come across. Later, in an interview, he recalled this moment saying, my mind became empty like a vacuum. He was paralyzed with fear, terrified that if he stepped outside, the tiger would be waiting for him. However, he knew that he needed to leave and alert people to what he found. Eventually, he did muster up the courage and he left. He walked out, heart pounding, from the hunting cabin to the logging mill two miles away. Still in shock when he arrived, he was visibly shaking when he told the men what he had seen.

They couldn't believe it. Three of them, including the owner of the logging company, grabbed some rifles they had on hand and piled into a small car with Andre, heading straight back to the cabin. When they arrived, they saw the same harrowing scene, blood splatter, and shattered objects scattered around the clearing. They fired their guns, banged on pipes, and shouted to alert the tiger and tried to drive it off if it were close. Like Andre had, they followed the tiger's tracks into the forest. They soon came upon the dog-severed paw and then Markov's body nearby. It was more gruesome than they could have imagined.

Markov was frozen solid. His intestines were hanging out and he had been decapitated. Still in shock, Andre told the others he wanted to keep things quiet. His main concern was protecting his friend Markov. who had clearly shot at the tiger, which was a federal crime. He also wanted to recover the body quickly for a proper Russian Orthodox burial. And he wanted to do this to save his reputation. So this was like his first initial reaction.

Like we have to cover this up. People can't know that this is how he died. Okay. But of course there's a lot of problems with that. And the logging company owner spoke up stating that that couldn't happen. There was a man who was dead and the police needed to be called immediately. So they decided to leave the site. untouched. The only exception was that his friend, Andre, removed his unregistered gun. And I don't know what he did

with it, but he made it disappear. That's a friend. Yeah. He's like, sorry. Like this happened, I don't want your reputation to be tarnished. Unregistered weapons are not legal. So I'll get rid of it. Yeah. It's kind of like the same sentiment of if I die, delete my browser history. Yeah. Delete the photos in my phone, please. You already know. We've already discussed this. It's like there's things that cannot be shared. My reputation. My reputation is on the line.

Yeah. Andre is a real one. Yeah, he is for sure. So quickly, after he gets rid of the gun, whatever he does with it, or he just takes it, I'm not sure. They left and they alerted authorities to what they had found. And that was circling back to when Yuri Trish was originally called. When Trish arrived at the cabin on December 6th, he immediately started rolling his camera.

In fact, there's a documentary film called Conflict Tiger that covers the story, and it includes some of the original footage that Trish captured during the investigation. In it, the camera pans across the scene, capturing the bloodstains in the snow and the scattered debris left behind from the tiger's rampage. Trish and his inspection tiger officers followed the tiger tracks into the woods. However, unlike Markov's friends, they didn't find his full body. Instead, they came upon a single severed hand and Markov's detached head without a face. Both were sitting in a circle where the snow had melted, despite the temperature being 30 below zero.

That suggested that the tiger had been sitting there for a long time while feeding on him. Nearby, they found a human femur that had been sucked clean to the bone. From there, the tiger's tracks continued deeper into the forest, suggesting that the tiger had dragged Markov's body from that first location after his friends had discovered it the day before. Trish, his crew, and Markov's friends followed the new tracks until they came upon another melted spot. Again, they didn't find a full body, but rather the remaining pieces of Vladimir Markov. They found his boots with sharp white bones sticking out of the tops, with his feet still inside, and an arm still tucked into one sleeve of his tattered shirt.

In all his years on the job, Trish had never seen a human so brutally ripped apart by a tiger. In his video recording, Trish observes that Markovs. boots were made of thin rubber, totally insufficient for the frigid weather, which indicated how impoverished he was. Cherish also remarked that Markov's gun was missing, though its imprints were clearly visible in the snow at the side of the attack. Markov's friends and Andre, of course, all denied the knowledge of its whereabouts. It's like, huh, that's strange.

That's weird. He must have eaten that, too. In all, who's going to know, really? You're in the middle of woods in Russia. What are you going to do? Yeah. What was I? Sorry, that threw me.

Kind of sprinkle in some humor with something so dark. Yeah. Well, we both watched the documentary. Yeah. It's intense. It's intense. And it's hard. It's kind of like, I don't know if you agree with this, but your descriptions of what you just, how you described the scene and like, you know, just how the body was discovered.

discovered and all that. I had a hard time like putting that to. I kind of was like, what am I seeing right now? Yeah. In the film. Number one, there's a couple reasons for that. Number one, it's like a home video style shot. Not great. It's from the 90s. It's not as great quality. It's moving around really fast. It's shaky. It's very, what's that movie? Like Blair Witch Project type of feel. But also, it's like there's not much there. It's not like this body that's like just splayed open and what like you can distinguish. Oh, that's a human. It's like there's barely anything there.

So you're like, I know that this is the remnants of a person because I have context. But if I was just shown a still image, it would take me quite a while to figure out what I was actually looking at. Yeah, it'd be like boots and yeah. So. Yeah, the video. And I think that they tried to hide some of the more gruesome stuff. Maybe they didn't add the full video. But there were some like there were moments of the video. I was like oh my god, are you really showing that right now? Yeah. I know. I'm like, wow, this is permitted. I mean. Yeah. Jump scare. Yeah. For sure. Trigger warning if you're going to watch it. They do show some pretty, some pretty graphic material in there. Throughout the whole document.

No. That's where we watched it right. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't it win awards though too? Like. Yeah. I believe so. No, I think it did. Okay. Yeah. I know it was. I mean, this is. I mean, this is. I mean, this is really popular story and then of course the book. Right. Yeah, so going back, they all deny that they know anything about a gun. Oh, no, he ate it. Yeah. However, Trish had doubts about their version of events because he was familiar with Markov's friends. He had busted all of them before for possession of illegal firearms and hunting without a license. In fact, he knew Markov too for the same reasons. During a routine patrol of the area the previous summer, Trish busted him for both things after discovering him with an illegally hunted badger.

Instead of issuing a citation, Trish had offered him a deal. If Markoff handed over his unregistered gun, he'd receive only a warning and he agreed. Now, a year and a half later, it seemed very likely to him that Markov had been out doing the same thing, but this time it had cost him his life.

Okay. Okay. The Inspection Tiger Squad collected Markov's remains with the help of his friends. All while, Trish's hunting dog, Jida, around and barked an alarm, alerting her human companions that a tiger was still nearby. So Trish and one colleague pressed deeper into the forest following the tiger's tracks. They could tell by looking at the tracks that they weren't far behind, and they gave clues to the

injuries that the tiger had. Every fourth print had spots of blood in it, easy to see in the snow, and some were tinged with yellowish green. This indicated that the tiger had been shot in its front right paw and that the wound was somewhat infected. But at this point, based on the the consistency of the prince, the injury didn't seem to affect the tiger's gait too much. As Trush and his colleagues followed the tracks farther from the cabin, they were keenly aware that the tiger could have doubled back and might be tracking them. Also, at this point, the sun was starting to set. Once it was nighttime, Trush recognized that they would be at a severe and dangerous disadvantage and decided after about a quarter mile to call off the hunt for the night.

This was a totally reasonable decision given the circumstance. He had a lot of good points there that the tiger could be trekking them. They were about to not be able to see. They should turn around for safety. But the decision would come back to haunt him. The next morning, the village held a funeral procession for Markov. Nearly everyone turned out for a silent somber march. Within days of his death, the news that the tiger had deliberately hunted and killed a person was front-page news. The media speculated that the killer was a female tiger who was taking revenge on Markoff for recently killing her cub, but that wasn't true. That was just like a news report story. Trush later determined from the size of the paw prints near the cabin that the tiger had to be an adult male.

Trish spent two days fielding press questions. On TV and radio, he urged local residents to stay vigilant and outsiders to stay away. Meanwhile, in the village, grief was quickly giving way to fear. Everyone wondered if the tiger would kill again. The nature of how Markov was killed was highly unusual and why the local people were so of rage. While it certainly wasn't unusual for a tiger to stalk and kill its prey, it was unusual for them to hunt people. But more so, it was the manner of how this tiger did it that was chilling. Amor tigers are known to be very patient hunters.

They will stalk and hide out and drenched brush for the perfect moment to strike. They typically go after larger prey, like wild boar, deer, black bear, brown bear, brown bear, and even in some instances they have been known to kill full-grown adult brown bears. Amor tigers are fast and silent in their movements, and many of their prey don't know they are there until it's too late. While I mentioned they are patient hunters, they typically wait about 20 to 30 minutes before they strike, but only about 1 and 20 tries generally proves to be successful. Tigers typically need about two large kills per week for survival. What is so chilling and different about this attack is how long this particular tiger stalked Markoff. Typically, they would

never dedicate so much time to their prey. In addition, they're known to be very quiet and hidden while stalking, and in this case, the tiger made itself very well known destroying Markov's property. These actions can be potentially explained. Most of more tigers generally avoid humans and their property, but certain circumstances can lead some individuals to become destructive. This typically happens when natural prey is scarce or when tigers are sick or injured, or both. In such cases, tigers may be forced to venture closer to human settlements in search of food, increasing the likelihood of conflict and property damage. While this tiger wasn't injured, it was struggling for food because of lack of resources, logging, and encroaching humans into its territory. However,

while these reasons were recognized, villagers and locals pushed another narrative, revenge. They painted this tiger as seeking revenge for the kill that was stolen from. it, destroying everything that smelt like Markov and eating the remainder of the bore it could find. And yes, maybe you could call that revenge, but also you could call it survival. This isn't entirely unheard of behavior for a tiger. While researching, I actually found that there have been several reported findings of brown bear tiger conflicts in nature, where a brown bear will steal or try to steal a tiger's kill, and it results in the tiger or brown bear's death, sometimes with a tiger stalking the

brown bear afterwards to find them. So this isn't the first time that this has happened to it's the first time it's happened to a person, but they will stock animals who take their, who take their prey. That behavior has been documented before, just not on a human. Okay. Yes. There's just so many. I mean, I'm so glad we're talking about. I'll let you keep going because I'm sure we're going to have a discussion about it. But yeah, there's always a reason. There's always a reason. And it's not usually the one of like, it's just this bloodthirsty animal that. There's so many underlying. There's a lot of things that amount to it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But I will say, and I'm painting this picture right now because I wanted to make sure that I talk about actual tiger behavior and what's normal and what's not.

But as I get even more into the story, there are some really weird things that this tiger does that I don't know how to explain. I don't know. I just think before I even know what you're about to say and explain, I just think of it. And maybe I'm totally off base and wildlife biologists can come at me. But when we're talking about typical or normal or expected behavior for a certain species, whether it be a tiger, a human, a badger, whatever it is, like, yeah, we have this certain data set of like, okay, this is typical or atypical. But just like with people, like we have expected behaviors for people, but there's always

individuals that go off the rails and do something that's totally outside of our own. our norm that isn't quote unquote normal but it's not on it's not unbelievable yeah and it's also very situationally based right it depends there's so there's so many factors that change behavior and i think as you can say that with humans you can also say it with wildlife right and that's what i'm saying it's like not everyone is this box yeah and there's not a box of like well they'll only act this way because they're a tiger right it's like well when you have all these other factors injured human encroachment, loss of resources, you know, loss of habitat. It's just like there's a lot of things that are also happening outside of this.

But I will say this tiger does some weird stuff. Okay. Which we'll get into. I love weird stuff. Yeah. Such a fan of weird stuff. So regardless of all of this, though, this was pretty unusual for the area and it had never happened before.

So understandably, people were very, very shicken up about it. Fear of the man-eating tiger kept many men out of the woods, but when hunting is your means of survival, not just a sport, stopping isn't always an option. One young man who chose to venture out was 20-year-old Andre Pochpena, Andre No. 2. A lifelong resident of the village who had recently returned from Army service. He had traplines set throughout a section of the forest and he needed to check them. Normally, he would go with a friend, but on Friday, December 12, 1997, he went to check his trapline. alone. Markoff's widow, a woman named Tamara, was holding a traditional ninth-day vigil for her late husband. His friend he usually would go with was attending it, so he made the decision to go without him.

Around 10 or 11 a.m., despite warnings from several neighbors about the tiger who was still on the loose, he went into the woods. He wasn't concerned because he hadn't provoked this vengeful tiger, and he theorized that it didn't know his scent. However, the following day, when no one had seen or heard from him, worry began to set in. It had now been more than a week since the tiger killed and ate Markov. And because of its injuries, the tiger hadn't been able to hunt anything successfully since then. Markov shot to the tiger's front right paw had effectively separated it from the leg joint. The tiger's newer tracks also indicated that it had sustained a deep cut in its front left paw, possibly while destroying his belongings. Both wounds were getting infected, but the gunshot wound was

definitely the most devastating and consequential. It meant that the tiger's speed and ability to leap long distances were off just enough to make him incapable of hunting in a normal way. With each passing day, he was getting more hungry and more desperate. As fate would have it, the tiger was already nearby when the 20-year-old Andre arrived at the hunting cabin that afternoon. After making tea and eating some bread, he headed out to check his trap lines. About a mile away, the tire came upon another unoccupied cabin.

Then it walked inside, dragged the mattress out, and positioned it with a clear view of his cabin. Then it laid down and waited for the young hunter to return. Around 2 p.m. when he came back to the cabin, the tiger had still been waiting on that mattress and then attacked him. And that's the weird behavior I was talking about. Like this tiger dragged a mattress out, made himself comfortable, and then just waited. That is a little chilling. And by a little, I mean. so much so. But at the same, I mean...

I also enjoy comfort, though, so I get it. Yeah, it's like if I'm going to be here a while, I need to just take a load off. Yeah, I should, I'm injured. I need a comfy bed. This one will do. But as far as the going after him now, it's like that to me is clear as day is this tiger has, for whatever reason initially prompted the first attack, regardless of it was, if it It was from, you know, out of spite or whatever it was, that tiger now knows that he can easily take down a person. And this is associating these cabins with people. Right.

And not only people that, because, of course, tigers were aware of humans before and you described that there was an incidents prior to this and whatever. But this tiger had an aha moment and said. okay, not only can I do this, it's easy compared to a lower success rate with prey that has co-evolved with me for millennia to outrun, outwit, like, escape me or defend itself against me. A bear versus a person. A wild boar versus a person. I mean, we don't even have sharp teeth. Yeah, like we're nothing, you know. So that, for me, I'm like, light bulb moment. that tiger's intelligent and it made, it like stumbled upon this discovery of like, okay, this is an easy meal. And there's a lot of people and I'm just going to, I got to eat.

And here we are. Yeah. And that also with the fact that he's injured, you know, right. It's like I can't hunt the way I usually do, but I found this really easy meal. So it shouldn't be a problem. I mean, we've talked about it's, it comes up in every single animal and episode that we've ever done from the Savo Lions to the Chompawat Tiger to the at least one of the bears in Night of the Grizzlies like there's always an injury there's always something going on that's inhibiting this predator to function at that normal you know it's not normal behavior but there's other circumstances that are creating it yeah like outside circumstances. Yeah. So I'm not shocked at all to, I mean, this story is shocking and it's upsetting and I'm

trying not to like make light of it. It's just the reasoning is so glaringly obvious to me. Yeah. It's kind of like this was bound to happen at some point. But the way that it's happening is obviously very traumatic and awful. Oh my God. But then, but then I don't know. The mattress thing is just so. That's a quirk. That is just like another level. I'm like, okay, he broke in. to another cabin, grabbed a mattress, hung out, and watched. Like, how do you explain that in any other way? I'd love to know. I would genuinely asking the world. The world.

Why a tiger would do that. Yeah. It's interesting. It's very interesting. So after three days with no word from Andre and this man eating tiger that was still on the loose and creating just a stirrup in the village, people were very, very scared and worried. his neighbor decided to go out looking for him at the cabin. When he arrived, he found the water pot on the stove was frozen and that mice had eaten some leftover bread, which suggested that there hadn't been any human activity in the cabin for days. The neighbor returned to the village and gathered Andre's father

and a group of other men forming their own search party to look for him in the forest. Before long, they found the tiger's tracks and then the mattress it had waited on. The party feared they knew exactly what had happened and began, began the search for a body, but they would never find one. Instead, in a circle of melted snow nearby, they found his bloodstained, shredded clothes and empty boots, along with an undamaged watch and crucifix. His father had brought along a hunting bag in case he found any animals in their traps during the excursion, but instead he used it to collect the small pieces remaining of his son. Meanwhile, the others analyzed the tiger tracks. They concluded that it had killed him on

December 12th within a few hours after he had arrived and stayed with his body feeding on him for the next three days until practically nothing remained. Then the tiger left. News of the second attack reached Yuri Trish later that same day. Trish too was deeply affected by it because he viewed him as an innocent as there was no evidence he had provoked the tiger or was hunting the tiger he wasn't poaching. He was also the same age as his own son. But most of all, because he felt that his death could have been prevented if he had chosen not to call off the search 10 days prior when they had found fresh tracks in the evening.

Yeah. Now, as the local inspection Tiger Squad leader, he was tasked with being the primary point of contact between the police unit and the local people, who again were frightened and angry, especially at him. In his book, John Valiant writes, Complicating matters was the fact that Trish and his men had cited so many locals for poaching and possession of illegal firearms.

It put him in the impossible position of being both an adversary and a savior. For some, he became a scapegoat. So that's such a hard position to be in because, one, you're telling these people not to hunt tigers and you're also getting them in trouble for it. And then in the other aspect, you have this man-eating tiger that you're not taking care of. And now there's a second death. Yeah, it's a very difficult position to be in. Yeah.

In addition to the fear of losing another human life, he knew that the situation could irreparably damage his personal credibility and the credibility of inspection tiger. Even as an advocate for tigers, he knew that this one needed to be eliminated for public safety and it needed to be done immediately. Within 24 hours of receiving the news of the second attack, three trucks filled with armed men pulled up in the village and set up checkpoints, blocking all roads to warn away incoming travelers. The formal hunt for the man-eating Amor Tiger began on the morning of Tuesday, December 16th. Once again, the temperature was around 30 degrees below zero. The hunting party consisted of Trush and five other men, all-season professionals with more than 200 years of hunting experience between them. And yet, none of them had ever seen anything like this.

Early on, they came upon the distinctive tracks of their injured limping target. They followed the trail for several hours, keenly aware that at this point, the tiger like knew their scent and very well might be hunting them as they hunted it. By nightfall, the group had figured out which direction the tiger was moving and they went to sleep optimistic. The next day, Wednesday, December 17th, exactly two weeks after the killing of Vladimir Markoff, the team followed the tiger's tracks for another whole day and failed to catch it. The following day on December 18th, a funeral was held for the second victim in the village. Meanwhile, inspection tiger continued to hunt in the forest, tracking the tiger's trail and the snow from the window of slow-moving

trucks, regularly getting out to check the prince up close, and then getting back in to drive again. They continued this routine on the 19th and the 20th. They observed that the tiger had tried to hunt some of its traditional prey on numerous occasions, but failed to be successful because of its injuries. They also could see that day by day, the tiger was making its way closer to the village. Then on the evening of December 20th, Trish's great fear was realized. His group followed the tiger tracks all the way into the village itself. This meant that the tiger was among the villagers that night, desperately hungry and on the prow. At that point, it was too dark for Trish and his men to keep tracking, and there was nothing more that they could do until morning, so all they could do was warn all the local people. That night, they all locked themselves inside, fearing for their lives. In the book from this episode, The Tiger, The author wrote, waiting for a tiger to attack is like waiting for a bomb to go off. Nobody slept much. Yeah, no shit.

It's like, of course not. And just thinking everyone's in like these kind of not well-made cabins similar to the hunting cabins that are nearby. And now there's this tiger just prowling outside waiting for someone or something to step out that it can grab. Yeah. Yeah. you're not in a fortress, that's for sure. When the sun finally rose on December 21st, the shortest day of the year, the temperature

outside was as low as negative 45 degrees. Because of that, it took Trish and his crew nearly an hour just to get their vehicles up and running. When they got to the village, they saw that the tiger hadn't even taken any livestock, never mind tried to find a person. Instead, it opted to head west without attacking and back into the forest. As they followed the new trail into the woods, they were headed right towards the cabin of another local hunter, just four miles away. At this point, the tiger hadn't eaten well in over a week, which was especially problematic given the bone-chilling temperatures outside, requiring him to burn many more calories just to stay alive. Their suspicion turned out to be right. The struggling tiger made a beeline towards

this hunting cabin. Fortunately, or unfortunately, from the tiger's perspective, the owner and her dogs weren't there. The tiger tore up the cabin, chewing through metal bowls and knocking things off the walls. He then dragged the owner's mattress outside, got comfortable on it, and waited for the unsuspecting hunter to show. But the owner never came out of day. Again with the mattress. That's the thing. Why? The mattress. I don't know. Like that's just got to be a weird characteristic, like a weird trait of this. Like, you know how sometimes like- You just likes to be comfy. Yeah, like, that's the only thing I can like people's animals like companion animals do weird things too. Yeah.

It's like, oh, that's just what blue does. Like that's a blue thing. Like it's an odd, you know, or whatever. Not all dogs do this, you know, but this one. Yeah. I don't know. There's something there. It's bizarre.

It's bizarre. It's so interesting. It is really interesting. But luckily, he hung out on this mattress for a while for a full day. it seems like. But no one ever came and eventually he left to find other sources of food. Shortly after discovering this scene, they came upon fresh tracks from this tiger and began tracking it down. What followed happened almost instantaneously. In a split second, the tiger went from invisible to flying through the air towards Trish. Somehow, in that split second, Trish managed to pull his loaded rifle over his shoulder and pull the trigger.

His rifle bullet wouldn't have been enough to kill the tiger on its own, but two of the other men and his hunting party were positioned on either side of the tiger and also acted fast. Miraculously, the two men were able to shoot at mid-air in the same moment a total of 11 times. Trish's rifle fired twice and actually went down the more tiger's throat all the way to the handle. Oh my God. So that's how close it was. It was literally jumping on him and he was firing at it. and it was like full mouth coming at him. It's like deep throated that gun.

Yeah. Holy shit. It landed on the gun. Oh my God. That is so, oh, maybe I miss. I was like so wrapped up in this, but. So they were tracking the tiger at this point in time. And I know it was this surprise attack, but did they have any indication that it was nearby?

Or they just, they knew that the tracks were pretty fresh. So they got, they saw like this whole scene and they. saw the tracks had left and they were following it and they knew that they were close behind, but they had no idea that the tiger was somewhere like watching them. Yeah, it was like it just left the mattress and was still looking at the area. Yeah. Okay. And then launched and just Trish happened to be the target. But there were obviously multiple men, but it was clearly desperate to go after a person that was with multiple other people. Right. Mm-hmm. Okay. So attack. Attack. Deep throat.

Deep throat. And of course, the tiger died in this. This was the end. Well, 11 shots, right? Or more? 11 shots just from the two other guys and two from Trish himself. So the tiger did die in this huge hunt that had been for it was finally over. It was 1235 p.m. on December 21st, 1997 when this happened.

I had just celebrated my seventh birthday. Yeah, I was getting ready for. Christmas and I was six. Meanwhile. People are getting... Meanwhile. By tigers. This is happening in Russia. I had no idea. No one told me. Yeah. I was unaware. I was unaware this was happening. I don't know why no one told me at six years old. Um, but this is happening. And although Trish amazingly had no fatal wounds from this, his back had a deep scratch from one of the tigers claws. So he didn't come out unscathed from this encounter. However, in, I feel like this is in Russian fashion, he, never was seen by a doctor. The men in town just sterilized his wound with vodka and used little

pieces of metal scraped from a tin can to pinch the wound closed. I mean, like, okay. You got to do what you're going to do. Yeah. From there, his next responsibility was to examine the injuries on the tiger. As they conducted their formal examination of the tiger's body, Trish and his team were stunned by what they found. In addition to the gunshot wound to his front left paw, which they knew about from the tracks in the snow, and of course the ones that had just happened. The tiger's body bore the scars of a much longer struggle. It had absorbed dozens of bullets of various calibers over time,

and part of its tail was actually missing. It appeared that Markov shot wasn't the beginning of a conflict, but the final straw in a prolonged and painful history between humans and this tiger. Reflecting on this, Yuri Church said, quote, it was men who were responsible for the aggression of this animal. And the incident with Markov was a sort of quintessence of all of those cases. Although Trish survived the encounter, he continues to be haunted by it. He said, quote, the native people tell me that I'm now marked by this tiger.

Some of them won't allow me to sleep with them under the same roof. Okay, all I can think of in my mind is, you know, that meme of Heath Ledger as the Joker. And he's like, and here we go. Like in my mind, I'm like, and there it is. Like, and there it is. The final straw. And yeah, there it is. The evidence why this happened.

It's all coming together. And to discover all of these bullet wounds that had survived. And then this last, I mean, this tiger had clearly had a really hard life and many encounters with people. Right. Many negative encounters with people. Yeah. And potentially even Markov before because as we said, he was out there hunting and had tiger encounters before. So who knows he could have encountered this exact tiger before and been responsible for a bullet wound.

Yeah. So true. And it makes you feel a lot more for the tiger too. God, I feel so. This one incident. Even when even in the documentary going back to like the footage in it and because it's on film. Yeah. And afterwards of them examining the.

body and like in the immediate aftermath, you know. Yeah. And like that attack had just happened moments before. And there's another piece of footage. I don't know if you remember, but it was showing an example. It wasn't of this tiger, but it was another tiger in a village that villagers had found and dragged out and beaten and shot to death. Yeah. To exemplify that tigers are encroaching more and more into villages as we encroach onto their habitat, et cetera, whatever. But yeah, just like that footage and the footage of this. tiger and it's like, I understand the reasoning behind it. I agree that a tiger like this should be killed. Yeah. Clearly. But you can't help but feel bad for the individual animal that suffered the

consequences, like this, this mountain of consequences. Yeah. Or this mountain of how do I want to say this? just like it's just the the end of a really sad story and yeah it's just it's hard to watch and it's hard to see and it's hard to know that we had such a heavy hand we as people have such a heavy hand in creating and writing a story like that you can't help feel bad yeah and when you look at it yeah this tiger killed two people and it's devastating to the family's and awful and it's really sad i can't express like how sad that is and horrible but at the same same time, I mean, we decimated thousands of tigers. This was two incidents, you know, like, in retrospect, tigers have done far less to humans than humans have done to tigers.

For sure. And can't be stated enough. Yeah. You know, it's just like, of course something was going to happen when you are encroaching on their space, but also you are poaching and killing thousands of them. Like, I know. It sucks at the happen to those two people, especially when you look at their stories where they're just out there trying to survive and not even necessarily trying to go after the tigers. They just need food themselves. You know, it's everyone's out there trying to survive and it's sad. And you're competing for the same prey essentially. Yeah. Exactly. You are. So I mean, it's tough, but at the same time, it's like we have done so much worse to tigers. It's just like a lose, lose, lose situation. Everyone loses. Yeah.

So kind of going into that a little bit. Tiger populations globally have dropped from an estimated 25 to 30,000 just 50 years ago to around 3,200 today. Largely due to habitat loss and poaching, tigers now occupy less than 7% of their original range, with 40% of their habitat lost in the past decade. However, on a brighter side, the Amor Tiger population has increased from an all-time low of 40-something individuals in 1947 when Russia first put the poaching ban into effect. The most recent estimate is around 580 individuals and has remained stable for the past

decade. The Moore Tigers official conservation status has been downgraded from critically endangered to endangered. So not back to the regular population sizes, but a huge, I mean, going from 40 to 580. That's a big win. It's a big win for sure. And I wanted to talk just before we end this episode, I wanted to mention a little bit of why tigers are important because I think it's really easy to hear an episode like this and be like, well, why do we need them?

You know, they're really scary and they're dangerous and they're doing this. Like, why are they so important? And that's a great question. Tigers are key umbrella species, meaning their protection benefits entire ecosystems. Conserving tigers help safeguard countless other species that share their habitat. more tigers play a crucial ecological role beyond predation. By leaving behind Carillon after hunts, especially in winter, they provide vital food for scavengers like birds, which in turn support forest health by spreading seeds and controlling pests. Tigers also regulate prey populations,

aid in nutrient cycling, and help maintain biodiversity. Protecting tigers, therefore, not only preserves a single species, but also strengthens the stability and resilience of the area's broader ecosystem. And that's just like a tiny note of what they do. And also, may I add, another reason why they're worth protecting far less eloquent is it ain't always about us and just us. So true. Like there are, it's not all about people. And as much as that's harsh and feels cold, it really isn't. And we need to start like considering the other. just life forms that we shared this planet with. Like I think we've come far enough to know that not only is it important for all of the reasons

you just listed and more, but it just is it's not all about us. And it's just like we've kind, I think we're starting to grow like a little bit tired of that, that view as well, I think. And people are being more conscious of that. Yeah. Well, especially in our generations too, we're really seeing this, what's happening because of it. And we're really starting to feel the repercussions of the past decades of what we've done.

And I think people are starting to understand why species are important and why like apex predators are scary, but they're important. Yeah. And just because, I mean, when it comes down to it, if we didn't have our brains, we would be bottom of the food chain. You know, so I, it's, which is a scary thought, but it's true. It's just the way it is. Like it's just the way it is. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway. Wow. Well, to tie this all into a bow, a neat little bow and also into a national park because I haven't mentioned national park yet. Oh, right. Yeah. The story.

Oh, yeah. That. Oh, yeah. That. Oh, yeah. That. The park protects over 1.16 million hectares of untouched forests and, of course, the Amor Tigers who live in it, which is home to about 10% of the world's wild Amor Tigers.

The park also safeguards the traditional way of life for indigenous groups. This area is also recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as the park contains one of the world's largest untouched temperate rainforests and serves as a critical refuge for biodiversity. The park is not just home to the Amor Tigers, but third. 51 species of other important mammals, including brown and black bear, moose, wild boar, roe deer, red deer, musk deer, wolverines, and more. The region also supports 194 species of birds, making it a key area for wildlife conservation in northeast Asia. While the fight still remains to protect tigers, the development of this

national park is certainly a very promising start. As the largest park in Russia, it offers a safe space for them to roam without the encroachment of humans, and hopefully it will provide them a safe haven for a very long time. And that is my story of the Amor Tiger. And bad shit it did. Thank you so much. Wow. Wow. I'm so glad you finally did that story. It didn't disappoint. I learned a lot. And it was so, I mean, I understand. Why is this not a movie movie? Like I know there was the documentary. It's such a crazy story. But the documentary is, like we said before, it's, it's, it's, it's hard to, it's, it's, it's hard to. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's hard to, it's, in what you told me that, like, I would have been missing so much if I just, context,

watched the documentary and was like, oh yeah, I know that story because I did, I don't. That's why the book is, yeah, the tiger is where it's at. Like, that's where you're going to find all the information, but I agree. It should be a movie. Yeah. It's like, it's right up there. It would bring so much. It would bring so much, like, people would see how important tigers are by seeing a story like this in film, too. It's right up there with Night of the Grizzlies, like, as far as like shock factor and, like, just disbeliefing. That's what I thought, too, when I learned this story. I was like, wow, this is the first time I feel like I've told the story that rivals Night of the Grizzlies.

Yeah. I think, yeah, well, I don't know. That was an awesome one. And I'm so, yeah, so happy you told it. Thank you so. And I know it's a lot on the longer end. Yeah, we've been sitting here. for a while. Yeah, we have. I am just, I know we just, like, I felt like a little preachy about

how we need tigers and we should protect them and they're important. I also have to walk out of my garage and into my home. And I'm so happy that there aren't tigers here. Am I allowed to say that? Yes, definitely. Definitely. Definitely. Like, I, I feel like a hypocrite saying that, but it's just a true feeling. Yeah. But you also have to remember in like these places of the world where tigers are, people lived there for years with no conflict. It's logging. It's a deforestation.

It's the, I mean, tigers don't want to be near humans either. You know, it's a last resort, I'm sure, a very last resort. So I feel like we don't have enough space for them in New England where they would thrive and be happy. there's too much population here. But, you know, in Russia where there was these huge landscapes and now this national park that has over a million hectares of land. Yeah. There's hopefully a little bit more space for them. Wow.

All right. Well, thank you everyone for listening. If you want to watch that documentary, you have the warnings. Yep. Be careful. Take care. Watch with care. Yeah.

And we'll see you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you love National Park After Dark and want to hear exclusive bonus stories, join us on Patreon or Apple subscriptions.

Patreon subscribers have access to our National Park After Dark Book Club, live streams, Discord, and much more. If you prefer to watch our episodes, video episodes are now available on YouTube. If you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite listening platform. And to follow along with all our adventures, you can find us on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X at National Park After Dark. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind.

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