was injured and, most likely, in unfamiliar territory.
That evening, it was determined that they would hunt the tiger using
two four-man teams. The strategy was simple, involving a kind of roving
pincer movement: while one team tracked the tiger step for step, exerting
steady pressure from behind, the other team would drive the surrounding
logging roads, searching the edges for signs of the tiger as well as
humans who could be at risk. Shibnev was correct in that tigers can cover
huge distances in a short period when they need to, but this is rare; major
relocations are usually caused by natural catastrophes like fires and
plagues. War can cause this, too, and so can a concerted hunt, but on
December 16, the tiger was close by, and he was the one who was
hunting.
A strange feature of the ordeal in Sobolonye was that although the village
was well populated with hunters, many of them professionals, only one of
them volunteered to assist Inspection Tiger in the hunt. This was striking
for a couple of reasons, the first being that it was they and their neighbors
who had already lost the most to this tiger, and who had the most yet to
lose. But another, more ironic, is that among these reluctant hunters were
men who may have had more tiger hunting experience than anyone in
Inspection Tiger. Sasha Dvornik had actually admitted to shooting a tiger
once “long ago,” but, if Trush’s information was correct, there were
others as well; Zaitsev, for one, was a prime suspect. Unlike Andrei
Onofreychuk, Zaitsev had the skill, drive, and discipline for such a task,
and also the means to get a dead tiger out of the forest. One reason he
may not have stepped forward is because of his history with Yuri Trush,
who had busted him once under rather comical circumstances: after
luring Zaitsev out of hiding by imitating the call of a rutting elk, he added
insult to injury by confiscating his gun and ammunition.
When asked why they didn’t participate in the hunt, or initiate one
themselves, Zaitsev, Lopatin, and others said, variously, that they weren’t