Welcome back to scary animal attacks.
This week's episode takes us to the dense arboreal forests of the taiga of the Russian
Far East.
A province named Prymorya features a rolling topography with the world's largest undammed
river, The Amur River.
The wildlife of the area is a murderers row of some of the most dangerous predators on
earth.
Carnivores like the Amur Brown bear, that grows to enormous size, timber wolves- which
have been known to pack up to packs numbering in the 20’s of individuals, The Amur Leopard
or snow leopard which hunts among the crags and cliffs, Wolverines which will fight any
animal that cross its path and the largest killer cat in the world, the Siberian Tiger.
These predators feed on the caribou, moose, elk and deer as well as the very dangerous
wild boar.
Judging by this panel of dangerous animals, it is amazing that there are people who scrape
out a living here.
In the depths of winter of 1997, poacher Vladimir Markov was going poaching, and loaded up his
gear to travel to his remote cabin.
He spent a lot of time there as employment is very hard to come by, but a brave and resourceful
man can hunt, fish and trap enough to survive.
Markov gave his wife a kiss goodbye and had his friend drive him away from his home in
Luchigorsk and down about 50 miles of the roughest road imaginable.
Markov and his friend packed his supplies into the cabin as he was preparing to settle
down for the night to hunt in the morning.
The next morning Markov woke early and grabbed his gun as he gun and headed out of the door.
The temperatures were well below zero but he was used to it.
He and his dogs were not hunting anything in particular but what they wanted most was
anything he could sell in the black markets.
This could be meat from deer or boars or pelts from wolves, leopards or even tigers.
Tigers and leopards are protected by law but yield an enormous amount of money on the Chinese
markets to the south.
As Markov led his dogs through the forest on foot, they came across a huge track of
a male Siberian Tiger.
This was the opportunity he was hoping for.
The pack followed the tracks for a few miles as it meandered through the thick bush and
over hills.
As the group tracked the giant cat they could see it’s tracks in the snow as it pursued
a wild boar and knew they must be close to it.
The dogs bayed and barked as Markov approached the end of the trail.
He could see the muscles ripple across the shoulders of the cat as it leaned over its
recent kill and glared at the man, demonstrating it was not about to relinquish its kill.
Markov raised his shotgun and fired at the cat.
He was a sure shot as his livelihood depended on it and the cat flashed through the white
birch forest as it disappeared from his view.
He was certain he had mortally wounded the tiger and now had a bonus he would also glean.
He walked over to the boar that the tiger was feeding on and began cutting himself some
of the fresh meat.
Markov salvaged a good amount of meat from the boar carcass and turned his attention
to the tiger, which he was sure would be lying dead over the hill.
He found the cat's enormous tracks in the snow and began following each step as he found
it.
Some blood here, a track there, the fresh snow made it easy, but he noticed that as
he followed, the blood trail seemed to decrease.
As he followed the tracks for a few miles the blood in the tracks stopped and he realized
he would not be able to catch up to the tiger if it wasn’t mortally wounded.
Disappointed he redirected his travel back toward his cabin and the warmth therein.
He would feed his dogs and himself some of the salvaged meat and hunt again the next
day.
When he gets back to his cabin, he takes one of the haunches from the boar and put it in
the well head of his beehive and takes the other to town to see what he can get in trade
for it.
He trades for some needed supplies for his camp and some more ammunition for his shotgun
and makes it back to his cabin just before sunset.
While Markov was in town, the wounded tiger returned to his boar kill and smelled the
scent of the man and his dogs, and also noticed that most of his kill was taken.
Using his keen sense of smell, he follows the tracks of the man for quite a while and
a few hours into the dark of night finds the cached hind haunch from his kill which Markov
stored in the beehive wellhead.
The tiger destroys the wellhead out of frustration and reclaims his boar meat.
He drags it off a short distance and eats it a short distance from the cabin.
The tiger is not happy with how events transpired and is not satisfied with the fact that he
got his meat back.
He silently pads down to the cabin and walks around it carefully analyzing the situation.
Markov’s dog barks incessantly and he realizes something is going on outside.
Markov waits for some time to get a good look at the cat and decides to solve this problem
with a well placed shot.
Markov grabs his gun and calls his dogs into the cabin.
His cabin is set up with shooting ports that allow him to put his gun barrel through and
shoot outside, sort of like a hunting blind.
He points his shotgun through the shooting port and fires at the tiger.
The giant cat disappears into the forest having been wounded twice now, by the same man.
The next day Markov is unnerved by the fact that the tiger showed up at his cabin and
wouldn’t leave.
It clearly reclaimed the hind haunch from the wild boar and still came to his cabin
afterward, so its behavior was not about food.
These details sent him into a psychological tailspin.
In the far east tigers are believed to have a vengeful and calculating aspect to their
behavior.
Locals believe that they hold grudges and exact revenge long periods of time after events.
Markov decides he must leave the taiga and departs to his friends cabin to catch a ride
back to town and safety.
At Duncha’s house, his friend tries to convince him to stay at his cabin for the night as
the radiator fluid has been drained from the vehicle for the night.
This must be done each night as the temperatures are too cold to leave it in.
Markov finds his resolve and decides against staying with his friends and waiting.
He decides to head back to his cabin and deal with this tiger the only way he knows, by
shooting it and killing it.
While Markov was gone the tiger gained entry to his cabin by demolishing the door.
The man's scent was everywhere in the cabin and the cat chewed, clawed and bit anything
that smelled like him.
The tiger finds a water drinking ladle and flattens it and puts canine tooth size holes
in the cup part.
The tiger shreds, splinters and destroys any of the man's tools and possessions he finds
outside the cabin.
After he finished ransacking the cabin, he finds a well hidden spot and lays in wait
for Markov over the trail.
As the now resolved Markov approaches his own cabin in the dark, the tiger ambushes
him from a well hidden blind beneath a low hanging spruce bough.
The fight, if you can call it that, didn’t last long.
Investigators would find a horrid scene with the surrounding snow covered in blood at the
nexus where tiger and man tracks met.
A single dog leg protrudes from the snow.
The snow had been stomped down into a circle and melted off with a human femur picked clean
of flesh in the middle of it.
A bloody drag trail leads to another cleared out circle in which they found the rest of
Markov.
His boots and bloodied clothes still held their respective body parts.
Severed arm still clothed by the sleeves.
Feeding on the man pacifies the tiger for a few days and then it leaves.
The tiger heads downstream over the next few days, moving slowly from its now infected
injuries.
As it approaches a small camp that Markov frequented it smells his scent on the outhouse
and splinters the entire building, further injuring itself.
The villagers have now heard about this tiger and the taiga is empty of the poachers, miners
and lumberjacks.
The only exception to this void of humanity, is a 25 year old trapper named Andrew Pachutnya.
Andres' parents forbade him from checking his traps until the tiger was caught or killed
but he was bold to the point of foolishness.
He had arrived on his trapline and checked a few traps before returning to his cabin
to cook lunch.
A mile and a half away, the tiger smells Andre and breaks into a nearby cabin.
He trashes this cabin just like he did to Markov’s.
Anything that smells like a human he claws, bites or breaks.
The tiger takes the mattress from the bed and carries it out into the snow.
The tiger carefully lays the mattress out in a hidden ambush spot and laydown to wait
above the trail leading to the cabin.
Andre was not unprepared to check his traps and left his cabin with his rifle for protection.
It was a mossant nagant rifle nearly one hundred years old.
Siberian winters are very hard on anything that rusts but they are very hard on ammunition.
The temperatures drop so low that the air in the bullet casing can sweat inside the
round.
In one season of winter this can ruin or render unreliable all ammunition a trapper possesses.
As Andre approached his neighbors cabin en route to check his traps, he was ambushed
by the tiger from his resting spot atop the mattress from a distance of only 10 yards.
The young man had quick reflexes though as he was able to quickly pull his rifle from
his shoulder strap and put it to his shoulder to fire.
The only problem was, the ammunition was corrupted and the bullet did not fire.
The tiger didn’t die.
The rifle misfired when the young trapper needed it most.
Andres' father rounded up a search team to find his son, and soon located the ambush
site, which was bloodless.
The tiger broke the young man's neck without shedding any of his blood.
His father picked up the rifle and confirmed the misfired cartridge and threw the gun into
the river.
The drag trail led 50 short yards into the trees.
The site the men witnessed was tragic, especially to the young man's father.
Andre’s entire existence had been reduced to his shirt and pants with his boots covered
with his blood.
His crucifix lay atop the snow nearby.
The tiger fed on him for three days and consumed nearly every bit of Andre.
What was recovered could fit in a large shirt pocket.
The men collected the scant remains and returned to inform his mother.
Project Tiger is a group of tiger researchers and enforcement officers funded by western
conservation groups and they operate something like park rangers without a park.
They set up checkpoints and information hubs to let the locals know about the tiger and
how to stay safe.
They assembled a professional hunting team of 6 men to start tracking the tiger and save
human lives.
In early December the hunters tracked the limping tiger tracks to Andres cabin where
they could see everything in a shambles.
The tiger had repeated his venting on anything that smelled human and splintered tools and
accommodations alike.
From there they followed him through the mountains and observed his tracks as he pursued game
time after time with no success.
The head tracker was named Yuri Trush and he was flanked by officers Shibneff and Pionka.
The hunters had noticed the tracks of five other tigers in the area but the large male
they were following had a tell in his track.
His wounded right foreleg had stopped bleeding but now he was carrying it so his tracks would
show only three legs.
The hunters follow the tiger as he hunts his way back into a more remote area near a cabin
of a man called Shlemenko.
As the hunting party enters a clearing near the cabin, a deafening roar rattles the bones
of the men.
Officer Trush turns toward the area emanating the road to see the giant cat leap toward
him from about twenty feet away.
During the adrenalized slow motion moments, Thrush sees the intense angry look in the
tigers eyes focused like lasers on him.
Its paws are outstretched toward him and he can even see the extended razor sharp claws
reaching toward him.
Pionka and Shibneff had spread slightly ahead of Trush just before the ambush.
All three men shouldered their rifles and commenced firing as the tiger was flying through
the air toward Officer Trush.
The cat's open jaws and paws could not be stopped as the tiger plowed into Trush, sending
the large man into a backward somersault.
Thrush had managed to get off 2 shots from his rifle while the cat was closing on him,
and the other two officers pumped out eleven shots.
Thrush had deep gashes on his back, thigh and arm from the impact of the vengeful tiger
but the giant was dead.
He picked himself up from the snow and was completely confused by the speed of the attack
and had no idea where his rifle had gone.
As the men approached the tiger, incredibly they could see that Trush’s rifle had actually
gone down the throat of the charging tiger and was partially protruding from its mouth
as it lay dead.
The dead tiger was loaded into a vehicle and taken back to the village to assuage fears.
The cat was emaciated with a giant head.
The men skinned the tiger and could see where the cat was wounded by more than Markovs two
shots.
The tiger had been wounded several other times and even carried several lead balls from the
larger shot embedded in its flesh.
The tiger was just reaching maturity and would later be stuffed and displayed at the administrative
headquarters back in Luchegorsk.