On the Trail of The Tiger's Tormentors

By Andrew Meier/Primorye

On a frozen winter night on russia's far eastern edge, Pavel Fomenko and a truckload of comrades are cruising slowly, headlights off, down an ice-covered riverbed. Under a full moon, Fomenko has seen the giant paw prints of the Amur tiger, more widely known as the Siberian tiger. But he is not hunting the striped cat; he's hunting the hunters. Working for the World Wildlife Fund in cooperation with Russian authorities, he is leading an anti-poaching patrol, going after criminals who try to profit from killing one of the world's most magnificent--and endangered--creatures. Telltale tire tracks in the snow suggest to Fomenko that a Jeep full of poachers is on the trail of the big cat.

No one knows exactly how many tigers prowl Russia's taiga, the vast northern forest, but their numbers have dropped sharply in recent years, perhaps to no more than 350. The pressure on the animal intensified in the 1990s, after the Soviet Union collapsed and Chinese traders flowed across the newly porous border with Russia. In traditional Chinese medicine, tiger parts are reputed to have almost magical powers, and even though China has outlawed products made from the endangered cats, traders will pay Russian poachers big money for bones that will fetch $10,000 a lb. on Hong Kong's black market.

Fomenko, 37, calls himself a reformed hunter. A Siberian native, he spent many years earning a living by legally shooting and trapping the taiga's mink and sable. Comfortable even when the temperature hits -40[degrees]F, Fomenko can glide through the deep snow like a cat, carefully placing one foot in front of the other, so his footprints disappear in the steps of his prey. Now and then he stops, sable hat in hand, to do what he does best: listen to the forest. "When you live alone in the taiga for months," he says, "you get to know all the animals in these woods." Over the years he increasingly knew that excessive hunting, beyond what was authorized by the government, was taking a terrible toll. That made him receptive in 1994 when the World Wildlife Fund approached him to lead a fight against illegal hunting of tigers (and the elk, boar and other game that tigers feed on) in the Primorye region in Russia's Far East. "If we can't protect the tiger, the king of the taiga," he says, "we will lose, slowly but surely, the richness of our biodiversity."

It helped that the WWF would pay much more than Moscow or local governments could afford to give men on the front line against poaching. At first Fomenko worked alone, but he now oversees three dozen men in 14 brigades. The rangers, as he calls the ecological policemen, earn as much as $300 a month, a good salary in Russia. In all, the WWF will dedicate $2 million this year to protect 1 million sq. mi. of Russia's Far East.

The dividends are obvious. Fomenko estimates that fewer than 30 tigers were poached last year, down from as many as 80 a year in the early 1990s. He believes the population has stabilized, and if that's true, he can take some of the credit. Like homicide detectives, Fomenko's brigades track the poachers, using roadblocks, stakeouts and even raids. In six years, the patrols have seized about 700 guns, 25 tiger skins and countless traps. Although the poachers are fined, Russian justice is often flawed. In parts of the region, says Fomenko, poorly paid officials are susceptible to corruption. "It's not hard to guess," he says, "why some might take bribes and let the poachers walk."

On this particular night along the frozen riverbed, Fomenko never finds the Jeep full of poachers. Perhaps the hunters sensed they were being hunted and fled the scene. But Fomenko doesn't think for a minute that the war is won. He knows that if he and his men don't keep a close watch over Russia's tigers, their stalkers will be back.

--By Andrew Meier/Primorye