Namfou Rutten and Alex von Kemenade were generous hosts in Beijing,
as was Audrey Perestyuk in Khabarovsk.
I owe a special debt of gratitude to Dale Miquelle, director of the
Wildlife Conservation Society’s Siberian Tiger Project, whose
generosity, hospitality, and openness to all manner of questions and
requests served as a touchstone and reality check throughout this process.
A portion of the proceeds from this book are being donated to several
organizations working on the front lines of the tiger protection effort in
Primorye:
In addition to supporting Yuri Trush’s work in Udeghe Legend
National Park, Phoenix Fund, www.phoenix.vl.ru, based in Vladivostok,
is currently assisting more than a dozen inspection teams in Primorye.
The Tigris Foundation, www.tigrisfoundation.nl, based in Amsterdam,
and 21st Century Tiger, www.21stCenturyTiger.org, which is affiliated
with the London Zoo, are both supporting the work of inspection teams in
Primorye.
In addition to its ongoing work studying the tigers of the Sikhote-Alin,
the Wildlife Conservation Society, www.wcs.org, is focused on refining
and implementing the all-important “coexistence recipe” in an effort to
meet the needs of the Amur tiger and the humans who share its habitat.
Conservation of tigers and their habitat is not a priority in Moscow, so
foreign funding is crucial to the efforts of these worthy organizations.
Even modest donations are greatly appreciated.
Patricia Polansky, Russian bibliographer at the University of Hawaii’s
Hamilton Library; Nina Semenovna Ivantsova, head of the Regional
Bibliography Section at the Gorky Library in Vladivostok; Cheryl
Hojnowski at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Vladivostok office;
and Michael Zwirn at Wildlife Alliance in Washington, D.C., were
helpful allies in ferreting out obscure source material. In Vancouver,
Peter and Rosa Stenberg provided a great translator and generous
assistance with research materials. Bree Bacon, Mike Bakst, Karin Elliot,
and Roma Sidortsov were generous with their insights into all things
Russian. Walt Cressler and Shelly Rosenblum waded through the
manuscript, offering many helpful comments and suggestions.
ron
(Ron)
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