Tigers of the Snow

Talk about performance anxiety: How would you feel if a team of National Geo camera folks, wildlife biologists, and a parade of international scientists documented your mating ritual with not just a pad and pen and super zoom wide angle color film, but with a...stop watch? My goodness, no wonder we've got problems with extinction. The animals being observed here are magnificent Siberian tigers--the biggest cats in the world, and sadly, perilously close to extinction due to drastic changes in their eco-support system (Russia houses one-fourth of the world's timber and the logging of these lands are profoundly changing the tigers' native environment), and poachers, as the coat for these cats can fetch $10,000 a piece. Beautifully filmed and boldly going where few cameraman have gone before, wildlife filmmaker Mark Stouffer (whose story is told in the feature film Wild America) captures extraordinary moments with his team as they sedate these huge cats and tag them with radio devices to enable year round tracking, in one case sneaking into a tiger's den to ear-tag a baby cub before the mama returns. Nature fans will witness these and many other feats here, as well as the aforementioned close encounter of the unlucky couple as they...couple. Highly recommended. Editors Choice. (N. Plympton)