♪ ♪
They say you can live your entire life
in tiger country and never lay eyes on a tiger.
♪ ♪
They're such secretive, stealthy,
and peerless predators.
♪ ♪
Tigers dominate everything else in the forest.
♪ ♪
This female is looking for something to eat.
Sadly, for her, the odds are not in her favor.
For every ten tries, she'll make just
one successful kill.
♪ ♪
Her prey holds an unlikely advantage.
Sika deer startle easily.
♪ ♪
To catch such a fleet animal, the tigress
must get very close.
Camouflage gets her only so far.
♪ ♪
Deer are vigilant to every sound, smell,
or darting movement.
♪ ♪
This time, they're not worth her energy.
She needs to save fuel...
♪ ♪
especially in this weather.
♪ ♪
She's a mother
with two cubs to feed,
a male and a female just about a year old.
They're both still a long way from independence.
♪ ♪
These cubs are lucky.
Their mother is an expert hunter.
They won't starve.
♪ ♪
Soon, they'll have to learn how to hunt for themselves,
one good meal every day because this is Russia's
Far East, where winter temperatures
of minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit are not unusual.
♪ ♪
For thousands of years, Siberian,
also known as Amur tigers, have occupied
this southeastern corner of Russia.
14,000 square miles of wilderness that's been
set aside as wildlife preserves
within a pristine
mountain range called
the Sikhote Alin,
otherwise known as Tiger Paradise.
♪ ♪
Here forests are brimming with game
like wild boar and Sika deer.
♪ ♪
My family and I have lived in this forest
for generations.
We're known as a streak of tigers.
These preserves are our last stronghold.
600 of us tigers now live in Russia's Far East.
We are the biggest of all wild cats,
cats that need room to range and to hunt,
especially if you're the dominant male like me.
I share my territory with several females.
♪ ♪
One of them is the tigress,
mother of our cubs.
♪ ♪
Soon, these cubs will have to leave
to make way for new cubs.
The young male will have to wander like a nomad
until he finds his own paradise.
The search could be dangerous.
Some cats range so far, they leave the safety
of the preserves,
a risk, for any young tiger.
♪ ♪
Just a few decades ago, tigers in Russia
were hunted to near extinction.
Humans captured and sold cubs to zoos and circuses
across the globe.
♪ ♪
Adults fared even worse.
♪ ♪
Dozens of us were killed by special brigades every year.
Our numbers dwindled to some 30 individuals.
♪ ♪
Humans were the enemy.
♪ ♪
Today, it's a different story.
♪ ♪
Tigers are protected all over the world...
♪ ♪
and with protection comes a certain notoriety.
♪ ♪
These researchers are here to study our behavior.
We're charismatic mega fauna...
so they're setting up camera traps
all through my forest.
They wan to know all sorts of things--
how we tigers communicate...
♪ ♪
at what age do cubs learn to hunt?
Aren't they cute?
♪ ♪
How much space do tigers need?
♪ ♪
And how many of us will crowd around a single home range?
♪ ♪
When are we most active?
And how often do we mark our scent to send
a message to other tigers?
♪ ♪
They even want to know if we migrate
the way humans seem to do.
♪ ♪
It's taken 80 years
of rigorous conservation to
see our population recover here,
but there's a catch--
the more tigers that survive,
the more space we require
to thrive.
We can only travel so far north
before food becomes scarce.
Better to stick it out
among a diversity
of other creatures.
♪ ♪
The Sikhote Alin mountain range is unique in this way.
Both subarctic and subtropical species survive
here and make this area their home...
♪ ♪
and who or what wouldn't want to live
in this primeval paradise?
Breeding pairs of paradise fly catcher
arrive here in May from southern Asia.
The toil of raising young is shared by the parents.
A sighting of a paradise fly catcher is rare...
while sika deer are numerous, especially here
in the southern part of our region.
After a long winter, deer are malnourished.
♪ ♪
Not only are they quenching their thirst,
these deer seek out vital minerals in the mud that
supplement their diet of grasses, leaves,
fungi, and ferns.
♪ ♪
Ah. They sense my presence,
and there's a baby, too.
♪ ♪
One of them sounds the alarm.
♪ ♪
Well, at least the herd knows who's boss around here.
This is my young buck now.
I'm going to get a good feed before I cache
this carcass to hide it from scavengers.
The cub's mother would surely share the kill with them,
but if I'm going to keep my crown...
I share with nobody.
The food is making me drowsy.
Time for a good nap.
♪ ♪
Across the rest of Russia, the job of top predator
belongs to bears.
Bears are some of the most adaptive mammals on earth,
omnivores that forage on berries or nest eggs
or smaller mammals...
♪ ♪
and when the river comes into season,
a diet rich in fresh salmon.
♪ ♪
Every four years, the breeding cycle
of salmon peaks.
Great numbers of fish appear in the upper reaches
of mountain streams, where they spawn
before they die.
♪ ♪
All a tiger has to do is pick up a ready meal.
I'm happy for the chance to fatten up for winter
because in mountains like these, not every year
brings a season of plenty.
A meagre harvest hits us cats just like
every other creature.
Some tigers will resort to hunting a bear cub
or look for food where humans live...
and that's when the trouble begins.
♪ ♪
Bad stuff happens when tigers leave the forest.
Someone got caught on camera.
Cats versus dogs.
Same old routine.
♪ ♪
Must have been one hungry tiger.
♪ ♪
The village of Kutusovka lies on the western edge
of the mountains just outside the tiger preserve.
One hundred or so humans and now one fewer pet.
Last night, a tiger took out another dog
chained up in a yard.
Juri Kolpak and his team of tiger experts have been
called in to investigate.
Kolpak's team work with both state authorities,
as well as the Amur Tiger Centre,
a conservation group.
Their mission is pretty straightforward--
de-escalate conflict between tigers and humans.
Not much to go on,
a collar and a few tufts of fur.
It wasn't me,
and I hope it's none of the tigers in my family streak.
No one wants an attack like this to happen again.
♪ ♪
Kolpak and his guys are pretty good at finding us
for humans.
♪ ♪
The team will build a profile of the problem tiger
with any evidence they find or record.
I want to know who it is, too.
♪ ♪
Autumn comes to Russian tiger country
sweetly at first.
♪ ♪
My cubs are nearly two years old now.
Their mother is about to stop feeding them,
a signal that it's time they find a way to live
on their own.
The male cub is not so little anymore.
He already dwarfs his sister.
♪ ♪
It won't bother me too much if the female remains
near her mother,
but the male, he's got to go.
♪ ♪
For us, territory is everything.
Without it, a tiger can't live for long.
♪ ♪
Finding unclaimed land will be the biggest challenge
of my son's life.
♪ ♪
With any luck, his first year of independence
will be fat with opportunity.
♪ ♪
If trees indeed communicate with one another,
then the Russian Far East forest is like an opera.
One tree here knows all the parts--the Korean pine.
Every year, these pines bear their signature fruit,
pine cones.
Every fourth year, there's a boom.
Everyone profits.
Wild boar, eager to fatten up before winter,
gorge on the dense protein.
In fact, humans love Korean pinewood and nuts so much
they've become guardians of the tree just
as they protect us tigers.
♪ ♪
Siberian chipmunks exploit the pine boom, too.
♪ ♪
On sunny slopes, the Manchurian oak is
another prolific provider...
♪ ♪
filling the ground until it's thick with acorns.
♪ ♪
Bounty rains down from the trees,
which means deer numbers go up!
All very good news for tigers!
My patch of tiger paradise includes
a remote river basin.
Some call this vast area the Russian Amazon
for its diverse wildlife
and not just the four-legged variety.
♪ ♪
It's also home to the Udeghe nation
of hunter-gatherers, who make a living from what grows
under the canopy.
♪ ♪
Yeah, I know this human.
♪ ♪
Klim comes here every year.
He's after small game.
♪ ♪
Sable for its fur.
An animal that small is pretty worthless to me.
Still, they thrive particularly well
in the cold,
and Klim goes to a lot of trouble to trap them.
Look how absorbed he is by his contraption.
Rather clumsy.
Humans can't just bite down and break the neck
of their prey.
Klim must wait until winter for a sable
to finally take the bait.
♪ ♪
Udeghe have populated Russia's Far East
for centuries,
but tigers were here first
for tens of thousands of years.
♪ ♪
Klim knows we're never very far away.
♪ ♪
Look. He's checking to see how recently
one of us walked by.
♪ ♪
Klim's golden rule-- keep away from tigers.
♪ ♪
Winter comes quickly, almost overnight...
♪ ♪
and what have we here?
My son is going to try out his brand-new hunting skills.
♪ ♪
In the deep cold winter of Russia's Far East,
every creature must fight to survive in heavy snow pack.
♪ ♪
My son, the young male, is among them.
He has to make a kill, or he'll freeze.
♪ ♪
You'd be forgiven if you thought catching
a prey animal is easy.
♪ ♪
Deer have incredible reflexes.
A simple shift in the wind could tip off
a tiger's scent.
♪ ♪
If they see my cub, or smell him,
it's game over.
♪ ♪
These deer were too fast.
My son can't afford to lose the calories it would take
to run one down.
He'll learn.
♪ ♪
Thousands of miles of pristine woodland
should be ample space for a young male to establish
a home territory...
♪ ♪
but the land must be clear of other powerful,
healthy males already in command.
♪ ♪
Like kings, we patrol all the borders of our range.
♪ ♪
Our spray and rubbing our scent serve as a guardrail
to protect our domain, our prey animals,
and our females.
♪ ♪
No young male should mess with us old guys.
The message is clear--all mine!
♪ ♪
By December, the river freezes over.
♪ ♪
As soon as the ice is solid, Klim can go hunting.
♪ ♪
I'll let him take a few animals,
but Klim tends to focus on his cash crops--
furry sable, plus fish, berries, medicinal plants.
♪ ♪
He's too absorbed with his traps to bother a tiger.
♪ ♪
A few of us hunt this land, one of my females and I.
♪ ♪
We'll each take down 60 or 70 animals a year,
mostly deer, elk, and wild boar.
♪ ♪
Klim takes notes on where we are.
I keep an eye on him, too.
We're fortunate. This is one of the only places
where there is no human-tiger conflict.
♪ ♪
Klim knows never to steal meat from a tiger's quarry.
That's taboo,
and he believes killing a tiger brings bad luck.
♪ ♪
Over the years, Klim's people have been pushed
further into remote territory, same as tigers.
In fact, we wouldn't have this wilderness
if it weren't for the Udeghe,
protection for both our sakes.
Our fates are interwoven.
♪ ♪
Udeghe and tigers, both fueled by a desire
to hold on to our precious sovereignty.
♪ ♪
Here comes one of my females now,
doing what she does best.
♪ ♪
This huntress knows her game...
♪ ♪
and how to get exactly what she wants.
♪ ♪
Well, well, well.
One young deer...
grazing alone...
♪ ♪
away from the herd.
♪ ♪
What could be better...
♪ ♪
for a hungry tigress?
♪ ♪
Her powerful jaws finish the job.
♪ ♪
What a solid kill.
♪ ♪
She'll need a safe place to store her prize
so she can feed on it for days...
♪ ♪
because arctic temperatures of 20 below
take no prisoners.
♪ ♪
That holds for these crows, as well.
♪ ♪
A few noisy birds don't bother my tigress.
She has plenty of meat.
The carcass will sustain her and other forest friends
for the next couple of days...
bones, blood, and all.
All clear, guys.
Dinner!
From a distance, crows don't look that big
unless you're a weasel.
♪ ♪
He's gonna figure it out,
how to get his share.
♪ ♪
Give it a rest, will you?
♪ ♪
Meanwhile, just over the range of the glorious Sikhote Alin,
my young son has wandered westward,
still looking for a place to live.
♪ ♪
He doesn't know it yet, but he just crossed
the border of the preserve.
Poor guy's never seen a human settlement before.
This could get ugly.
How strange it sounds and smells.
If they keep it up, losing this much timber
could spell our doom.
Well, the canine sense of smell is still intact.
This guy's the first to pick up the scent
of the feline invader.
♪ ♪
Oh, no.
♪ ♪
It's my son.
The young male is about to get his first taste
of civilization.
♪ ♪
Ugh. Now the humans are on to him.
♪ ♪
I wish it were some other unlucky cat
out looking for food...
but no, he's my own flesh and blood.
Ahh. He's got away.
Not every tiger is so lucky.
Year by year, human life expands deeper
into wild places.
For us, tigers, contact with humans...
verges on tragedy.
♪ ♪
We're still on the black market,
our pelts and our bones.
♪ ♪
Good morning, Kutusovka!
Nothing much to report around here...
unless you're a dog.
♪ ♪
Another canine life has been taken.
Chained up, they're almost too easy.
♪ ♪
Kolpak and his team of tiger specialists think
a tiger is at work.
They're setting a trap for the cat.
The trap triggers a radio signal that will alert
the team so they can tranquilize the animal
as quickly as possible.
At least that's the plan.
Better not be my boy.
♪ ♪
Back in the cabin, the men compare images captured
by camera traps they've set up around the village.
♪ ♪
One particular female keeps showing up.
Who is she? I hope she's not another tiger
from the home streak.
♪ ♪
The entire town is on alert.
In the ancient rivalry between cats and dogs,
it's no contest.
♪ ♪
Night belongs to the tiger.
♪ ♪
We're quiet, stealthy, and when you least expect us,
we run you down.
♪ ♪
As usual, dogs are the first to sound
the tiger alarm.
♪ ♪
The next day, the town discovers
more grim news.
♪ ♪
Two dogs have been killed,
one devoured on site.
♪ ♪
The humans gather the few clues that remain.
Everything suggests that the rogue tigress is back...
♪ ♪
and it looks like, whoever she is,
she's still on the loose.
♪ ♪
Kolpak and the tiger team head to the forest nearby.
♪ ♪
The size of the paw prints confirm it's the female.
♪ ♪
I've seen this drill before.
The humans are going to try to catch and sedate her.
♪ ♪
She knows they're after her.
♪ ♪
Carefully, the humans move in on the mystery tigress.
♪ ♪
Animal and man, both waiting
for the perfect opportunity.
♪ ♪
Got her.
Juka, juka, juka, juk.
She's been hit with a tranquilizer dart.
♪ ♪
She'll go down soon.
♪ ♪
I have no idea which clan this tigress belongs to.
She looks young, which is good news.
In a few weeks, she'll be moved to a wilderness area
to the west
far away from trouble.
She may not live as long in the wild as in a zoo,
but at least she'll be free.
♪ ♪
Spring is always a welcome arrival here
in Amur tiger land.
The forest becomes colorful and awakens to new sound...
♪ ♪
even song.
Creatures, like these Dybowski frogs,
play the tune of all life.
♪ ♪
For a week or two in May, the understory is set
ablaze with the neon blossoms of Dahurian azaleas.
♪ ♪
All along the river basin becomes a kind of Eden.
♪ ♪
No wonder my son, the young male,
feels attracted to this place.
It's downstream from my territory,
not too close to home.
♪ ♪
Could be a perfect spot for him to settle down
except for one thing.
The wind delivers a not-so-subtle message.
Another dominant male is ruler here.
My son has learned his lessons well.
A fight with this powerful stranger could be fatal.
♪ ♪
The future of Russia's tigers lies here
in the modern world with people.
Each September, Vladivostok, the biggest city
in tiger land, along with the Amur Tiger Centre,
the conservation group, host Tiger Day.
It's the biggest celebration
of the largest wild cat in the world,
the Amur Tiger.
Good thing, too.
By the time these children grow up,
our feline fate will be sealed.
♪ ♪
It's a paradox of nature.
♪ ♪
Wherever the great predators thrive,
you know the whole system is flourishing.
♪ ♪
Like you, we tigers need space to roam around
and places to disappear into.
♪ ♪
It's the only way we can go about our business
of living undisturbed, hidden from view,
supremely powerful.
♪ ♪
It all starts with the forest
and the epic production of food these trees supply...
♪ ♪
food that lures the paradise fly catcher to
spend each summer gorging on insects
and the explosion of boreal growth.
The Siberian grouse is a homegrown native
that munches on the needles of spruce trees in winter,
switching to larch during warmer months.
♪ ♪
Our local wild boar are big on family.
They're abundant if you know what I mean.
♪ ♪
Speaking of abundance, when the sika deer
come into rut, we know winter can't be too far off.
♪ ♪
Boar and deer, both favorite prey of tigers,
as well as our endangered cousins the Amur leopard...
♪ ♪
and the lynx.
♪ ♪
Protect tigers and the land where we live,
save all of these other animals, too.
♪ ♪
Over the many years I've wandered this preserve,
I've seen plenty of animals on the rebound.
It's a remarkable comeback story.
♪ ♪
As for my son, the young male we've been keeping
an eye on, his long, risky journey
is finally paying off.
♪ ♪
He's successfully navigated hundreds of miles
west and north from where he was born
to arrive exactly here.
♪ ♪
No other male claims this valley.
It's all his.
♪ ♪
Welcome to the neighborhood.
♪ ♪
Lucky guy. A young female just happens
to live here, too.
♪ ♪
This male's patch of paradise just got
a whole lot more promising.
♪ ♪
Primal woodland, ample prey, no rivals,
plus a young tigress for company.
Not bad!
♪ ♪
Not bad at all.
♪ ♪
Captioned by National Captioning Institute