Tigers Between Empires
The Improbable Return of Great Cats to the Forests of Russia and China
by Jonathan C. Slaght
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Pub Date Nov 04 2025 | Archive Date Dec 04 2025
Description
The thrilling saga of the great Amur tiger and the scientists who came together, across the world, to save it.
The forests of Northeast Asia are home to a marvelous range of animals—fish owls and brown bears, musk deer and moose, wolves and raccoon dogs, and leopards and tigers. But in the final years of the Cold War, only a few hundred tigers stepped quietly through the snow of the Amur River basin. Soon, the Soviet Union fell and catastrophe arrived, as poaching and logging took a fast, astonishing toll on an already vulnerable species.
Just as these changes arrived, scientists came together to found the Siberian Tiger Project. Led by the moose researcher Dale Miquelle and Zhenya Smirnov, who studied rodents, the team captured and released more than 114 tigers over three decades, witnessed their mating rituals and fights, their hunting and feeding, their ceding and taking of territory, their creation of families.
Within the pages of Jonathan C. Slaght’s Tigers Between Empires, these characters, both feline and human, come fully alive as we travel with them through the quiet and changing forests of Amur. We travel across time, too, as the species is shaped by the history and politics of empires—like the Qing dynasty’s Willow Palisade that once slowed human settlement, or the later introduction of roads through Russian reserves. The Siberian Tiger Project became the longest running tiger research initiative anywhere in the world; its work continues to guide conservationists today.
A Note From the Publisher
Advance Praise
“Tigers Between Empires is a riveting account of survival in the face of long odds, beautifully written and unforgettable. Jonathan C. Slaght introduces researchers consumed by fieldwork, as well as individual tigers as full actors in their own story, showing how each struggles to live another day while providing knowledge that might help tigers gain a lasting foothold in a landscape filled with dangers.” —Andrea Pitzer, author of Icebound: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World
“There is no beast on Earth more formidable, more magnificent, more improbable-seeming than the Amur tiger, standing in the snows of the Russian Far East. This is the saga of that animal, and of the heroic wildlife biologists who have long worked to understand and protect it. Jonathan C. Slaght tells the tale from deep knowledge, in rich detail, with high skill.” —David Quammen, author of Breathless
“This feast of a book is as rare a creature as the animals, people, and wild places it brings to life: it’s an epic and breathless adventure, stuffed with campfire stories, laughs, brushes with death, and the deep history of a place so rich and strange it seems conjured from ancient myths. If you liked Owls of the Eastern Ice, you’ll love this return to the Sikhote-Alin with the plucky, half-mad Russians and Americans who risked their lives to save the greatest of the great cats.” —Jonathan Meiburg, author of A Most Remarkable Creature
“A huge adventure at the frontiers of conservation, a whole hidden world, meticulously described, poised on the very edges of the wild, and repeatedly made searingly alive by the majestic animals at its heart.” —Adam Nicolson, author of Bird School
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780374610982 |
| PRICE | $33.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 512 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Anna K, Reviewer
A must-read for anyone who loves travel writing, wildlife, and remote landscapes. Tigers Between Empires beautifully blends scientific insight with personal adventure, offering a rare glimpse into the world of the endangered Amur tiger. Before reading this book, I knew very little about these elusive creatures - and even less about the tireless efforts scientists undertake to protect them. Slaght’s storytelling is both informative and deeply immersive, making this an eye-opening journey through one of the wildest corners of the world.
Reviewer 961127
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
WOAH, one of my favorites from this entire year for sure! This book was amazing, I can't believe I have never heard of this author before now! I can't wait to read his other works. I nearly hesitated while requesting the advanced copy of this book, because I was worried I would find it a bit too historical and dry (I don't often like reading pure history). However, it was anything but that!!! While the author does go over, in intricate detail, the history of tiger conservation efforts in northeastern Asia from the 1990s until today, it reads like part memoir, part wilderness adventure story.
If you like to read about people spending time outdoors or living in remote places (I am recently especially fond of What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs by Sharman Apt Russell, and Anima: A Wild Pastoral by Kapka Kassabova), then this would absolutely be the book for you. Animal lovers and fans of Barry Lopez (especially his animal writing in Arctic Dreams) will adore this as well, since the author takes you up close and personal with exactly how a tiger (and their prey) lives in the wild. We follow the young biologists through the forest while they note tiger signs and eventually begin to capture and track them- an intimate perspective that very very few people are ever lucky enough to experience.
Reading this was also very much like reading a memoir (even though I know it is not one), because the author really makes efforts to include specific details of the events and people involved to make you feel as if you are right there with them. In the end notes I found out this is likely because he WAS right there with them, at least for many later parts of this book, as he himself is a wildlife scientist who studied the endangered Blakiston's fish owl in the same region where the Siberian Tiger Project was doing its work (yes, I already added his book about this work to my tbr haha), and is friends with quite a few of the people he writes about. He is therefore able to paint such a wonderful and intimate picture of the Primorye region and its nature, along with the people involved in tiger conservation there.
I learned so much more than I expected about tigers and how they live (and die) in the wild. It is such a gift to feel like you have been right there walking with these huge, beautiful animals in their forest while reading this from your city house thousands of miles away. Wonderful history, wonderful animals, wonderful writing style, really a breath of fresh air- I can only very happily recommend this one!
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