A Glimpse Inside the Struggle to Save Siberian and Bengal Tigers

In Review: Tigerland

Writer/director Ross Kauffman, who won the Best Documentary Oscar for 2004’s Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids, returns to India with Tigerland, an exciting, scientific, and scenic look at the struggle for survival of one of Earth’s most spectacular — but endangered — animals, tigers. According to press notes, of the “100,000 wild tigers spread across the Asian continent in 1900, today fewer than 4,000 are left in the wild… [a] 96 percent decrease over the last century.” This nonfiction film focuses not only on the beleaguered big cats, threatened by habitat destruction and poaching, but also on the heroic humans who have dedicated their lives to protecting the rare tigers from extinction, often at great peril to themselves.

photo of a bengal tiger
Tigerland tracks the effort to save the Bengal (pictured) and Siberian tigers. Photo by Bernie Catterall.

To do so, the globetrotting documentary crew crisscrosses and intercuts from Madhya Pradesh in tropical central India, where conservationists are working hard to protect endangered Bengal tigers, to snowy Primorsky Province in the Russian Far East, the largest but least inhabited of the Russian Federation’s eight federal districts, where the average annual temperature is 34 °F and Siberian Tigers still roam in the great outdoors. There, paw prints in the snow help guardians track and protect the wild Siberian tiger population, which has decreased from about 4,000 individuals in 1900 to approximately 450 stalwarts today. Among other causes, the Bengals were nearly-exterminated by the rifles of British and maharajah hunters in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century — their numbers dwindled from 40,000 in 1919 to 2,000 by 1969, with an estimated 2,300 alive today. Effectively using archival footage, Tigerland depicts this so-called “sport of kings,” wherein more than 1,200 tigers were shot down over time during these royal rampages by big game hunters alone.

With a keen eye, Tigerland imaginatively illuminates why the exquisite striped felines have been in the gun-sights of wannabe bwanas (or bosses) and others over the years. The large cats’ sheer power has endowed tigers with a mystical aura, attracting hunters, poachers, and consumers to the notion that appropriating their divine-seeming attributes will bestow humans with their essence and magical cures. (Note to more sensitive viewers: There’s at least one grisly scene where skinned cats, tiger paws, etc., are depicted to reveal the hideous handiwork of illegal tiger rustlers eager to supply the demand that persists amongst the market for tiger body parts.)

The documentary includes imagery ranging from prehistoric cave paintings to ancient Roman mosaics to Asian paintings and what appears to be a nineteenth century Henri Rousseau French Post-Impressionist oil illustrating the splendid allure of the creatures. Twentieth century pop culture representations abound as well, including TV ads featuring the affable animated Tony the Tiger ballyhooing cereal and a clip from Walt Disney’s 1967 cartoon feature The Jungle Book, based on the 1894 collection of stories by Rudyard Kipling, British imperialism’s poet laureate. Tigerland also features three beautiful, somewhat psychedelic, original animated sequences that enhance and update this age-old iconography.

poster for tigerland documentary

Enter the far-flung, diverse would-be saviors, including members of an Indian eco-dynasty and a team of Russians striving to rescue the beasts besieged by poaching and environmental despoliation. ​Born in 1925 in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, naturalist and conservationist Kailash ​​Sankhala devoted his life to the carnivores’ cause and came to be known as “The Tiger Man of India.” The felines’ friend and patriarch of a preservationist family worked closely with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to protect the big cats. His work paid off when the “Project Tiger” conservationist program was established in 1973 to, literally, save the tiger. To save the animals from imminent encroachment, if not outright extinction, a network of Indian tiger reserves was setup inhabited by tigers as well as by other wildlife. Tigerland uses this undertaking as an example of how political will and funding can play a major positive role in shaping environmental policies and outcomes. (Can you say “Green New Deal”?)

Ironically, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the non-military aspects of the state withered away in what is now Russia. Although there is some governmental support for tiger conservation there, much of the crusade to conserve Siberians is provided by private eco-minded citizens and international non-governmental organizations, such as the World Wildlife Fund. ​Pavel Fomenko works with WWF-Russia as a “Tiger Ranger, Scientist and Detective,” or in other words, an expert trained in wildlife forensics. The apparently tall Russian looms as an archetypal “great white hunter” in the documentary — but with notable exceptions. He and his team are armed with binoculars and rifles firing tranquilizer darts — not bullets — as their goal is to care for, study, and salvage Siberians, not hunt or eradicate them. And while tracking the large cats out in the wilderness, Fomenko’s protectors disable poachers’ tiger traps and the like. Often, their goal is to safely catch Amur tigers in more densely populated parts of Russia’s Far East and release them in the relative safety of the vast wilderness expanses of pristine Bikin National Park at Primorsky Krai.

Nevertheless, the Russians and Indians embark on some safari-style escapades reminiscent of Howard Hawks’ exciting 1962 classic Hatari! shot on location in Africa, starring John Wayne as a big game hunter capturing and sending rhinos, zebras, etc., to zoos. In doing so, the Siberian and Bengal tigers’ saviors place themselves in harm’s way — and not only in the crosshairs of trespassers and smugglers hoping to make a killing by killing and selling tiger parts. For as the Vladivostok-based Fomenko finds out the hard way when he falls afoul of a ferocious feline, much to his shock and chagrin, no tabbies are these powerful “pussycats,” when a Siberian suddenly mauls the ranger. In a sequence some may regard as full of tropes about Eastern mystics, Vasily — an indigenous medicine man of Russia’s Far East — conducts a spiritual ceremony meant to heal the shaken Fomenko’s damaged body and soul.

Some preservationist purists may also look askance at what could be interpreted as the commercialization of tiger preserves. In one revealing scene, a caravan of gawkers with their vehicles line up beside a river presumably at Kanha Tiger Reserve, aka Kanha National Park, the largest in Madhya Pradesh, awaiting to shoot Bengal tigers as they bathe — albeit with lenses, not rifles. ​Kailash ​​Sankhala’s grandson, Amit Sankhala, appears to have parlayed the patriarch’s tiger odyssey into big business, as owner of what seems to be an upscale “glamping” resort, Kanha Jungle Lodge, where tourists can experience authentic “wildlife experience” — in exchange for pricey packages. (Of course, Tigerland is ballyhooed on their website.)

Kailash ​​Sankhala’s ​​great-grandson Jai Bhati is depicted as Mother Nature’s son, roaming the forest primeval, leading tiger safaris, swarmed by butterflies and referred to in promotional text as a sort of “Mowgli” — the charming Jungle Book lad who was raised in the forest by wolves and beautifully portrayed by Indian actor Sabu in the 1942 feature film adaptation of Kipling’s book. Some may see this enterprising evolution of “The Tiger Man of India’s” family as being emblematic of the currently capitalistic subcontinent and exploiting a clan’s crusading heritage. Others may regard Kanha Jungle Lodge as a stellar example of ecotourism similar to pachyderm enclaves such as Thailand’s Elephant Hills, where the cared-for creatures earn their keep.

In any case, environmentalists may cheer that at least in India, a way has been found to save the tiger.

Tigerland’s producer, Fisher Stevens, produced 2009’s Best Documentary Oscar winner, the horrific dolphin-themed The Cove. Stevens is also an actor who has appeared in movies like Short Circuit, Hackers, and Super Mario Bros., and who has also directed eco-documentaries such as 2016’s Before the Flood with actor Leonardo DiCaprio, Sierra Club executive director Mike Brune, and director Alejandro G. Iñárritu; and 2014’s Mission Blue about oceanographer, marine biologist, environmentalist, and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle. Fisher produced those docs too, along with 2015’s Oscar-nommed “Racing Extinction” with Elon Musk and a team of scientists.

Tigerland is being theatrically released March 22 in L.A. and March 29 in N.Y., presumably for Oscar consideration. Tigerland premieres on The Discovery Channel March 30.

L.A.-based reviewer/film historian Ed Rampell is moderating a panel on “Blacklist Exiles in Mexico” April 2 at the San Francisco Art Institute. Additional details.

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