Disarmed and desperate, Khobitnov swung his right fist, but the tigress
simply caught it like a dog snapping at a fly and crushed it. Still trying to
stave off the inevitable, he jammed his left arm into her mouth and
attempted to reach his pistol with his now punctured hand. The tigress
crushed his arm as well, impaling it with her remaining fangs and
shattering the bones. At that point, Khobitnov’s partner hit the tigress
with a dose of pepper spray and she leaped off him, fleeing into the
forest. The entire encounter lasted less than five seconds.
When the tigress was later trapped, it was discovered that not only was
she old and sick, but her teeth were rotten and she was missing several
toes. She had been killing livestock because there was nothing else she
was capable of subduing. Although she wouldn’t have lasted the winter,
this sorry creature was still a match for two experienced hunters. She was
put down by lethal injection. Meanwhile, in addition to the stitches,
screws, and cast, Khobitnov ended up contracting gangrene.
The lesson from this mishap is one the renowned tiger researcher John
Seidensticker tries hard to impress upon his students working in the field:
“Don’t ever assume anything with tigers.”^5 Everyone who works closely
with these animals emphasizes the importance of approaching them on an
individual basis. Tiger behavior is influenced by age, health, history,
stress levels, and place in the local pecking order, among numerous other
factors, and like us they are capable of very perplexing behavior.
Generally speaking, the more intelligent an animal, the more “character”
it is likely to have.
In December 2001, John Goodrich, the field coordinator for the
Wildlife Conservation Society’s Siberian Tiger Project, encountered what
he described as an “extreme, crazy tigress” at a logging camp near the
village of Pilana. “She chewed up chainsaws,” he recalled, “stole a gas
can and chewed that up, covered herself in gas. Then she attacked a
logger.” With life as difficult as it is in the forest, and with so many other
things to focus on, the motive to do things like this is hard to ascribe to
anything other than rage, desperation, or insanity—all of which lie well
within the tiger’s emotive spectrum. Inspection Tiger was called to the