The tiger is one of nature's most provocative metaphors for power, independence, grace and spirit, but a world consumed with symbols is hardly noticing as the animal sinks slowly toward oblivion.
Now one of the most intuitive nature writers of our time, Peter Matthiessen, lends his poet's voice to the desperate effort to save the tiger in "Tigers in the Snow."
He makes an eloquent case for enlightened coexistence between humans and tigers, starting in a remote corner of Siberia where the species has staked its last best hope for survival. Their impending extinction, he argues, would not only damage the world's ecology, but also our collective imagination.