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| Naturalist documentarian Park Soo-yong closes his eyes, recalling his memories of tracing the lives of Siberian tigers, during an interview with The Korea Times at Gimmyoung Publishers in Seoul, Tuesday. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk |
Park Soo-yong protects world's last remaining Siberian tigers and their habitat
By Kwak Yeon-soo
Before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, documentarian and conservationist Park Soo-yong used to spend at least six months every year in the Russian Far East, enduring loneliness and extreme weather conditions ― oftentimes with temperatures of below -40 degrees Celsius ― to study the Siberian tiger, one of the rarest species on Earth.
His expertise on tigers led him to publish two books about the animal. Park's nonfiction novel, written during the pandemic, "A Tale of an Old Tiger Named Kkori (working English title)," published 10 years after his first book, "The Great Soul of Siberia: Passion, Obsession and One Man's Quest for the World's Most Elusive Tiger," chronicles his relationship to an old tiger. The English edition is scheduled to come out in late March.
As a person who has never been shy about developing loving connections with animals, he gives the tiger the human name, Kkori (which literally means "tail" in Korean), in the latest book.
In the book, he writes about the final year of Kkori, a male tiger that used to rule the boundaries of his territory when he was younger but is now no match for a younger and stronger male tiger. Because tigers are highly territorial, Kkori is ousted by the new leader. During the barren winter months, he is forced to come down to a village and hunt farm animals ― a type of prey he would have ignored in his early years.
Park's interest in wildlife developed while he went through two life-changing events: his childhood in the countryside and the loss of his friend during the country's pro-democracy protests of the 1980s.
"I grew up in a big family and we were poor, so I started working at a young age. From age 11 to 18, I sold cows in rural markets because back then, the cattle were used for rice farming. Walking through the fields and forests, I became curious about nature," he said during an interview with The Korea Times, Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the tragic death of his friend, Park Jong-chul, a Seoul National University undergraduate and pro-democracy activist who was tortured to death while being questioned by the police in 1987, motivated him to think about death.
"The sudden death of Park brought up feelings about my own death. I didn't want a regular job that has a short cycle. I wanted to employ long takes and document the undiscovered world," he said.
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| This tiger, dubbed "Kkori" by Park, walks through a forest in the Maritime Territory of the Russian Far East. Courtesy of Gimmyoung Publishers |
So he became a producer at Korea Education Broadcasting Station (EBS). There, he had opportunities to film many wild animals, including birds, fish and reptiles. However, he fell in love with Siberian tigers because they aroused compassion in his heart.
"I focused on Siberian tigers, which are endangered and elusive. The difficulties in finding them allowed me to delve deeper into their lives: how they are born, how they live and die. After many years of study, I could identify individual tigers and recognize their family members. I saw fear, grief and ultimately acceptance when tigers lose their power as they get older. Their lives are not so different from those of human beings," he said.
When he started filming Siberian tigers in 1995, hours-long footage of them didn't exist. Most of the footage consisted of short clips of tigers that people accidentally obtained in the forests.
Park employed a method of tracing the migration route of deer or wild boar, because tigers follow them. Instead of following the tigers, he built a bunker or treehouse where tigers would likely appear and spent months alone there in hopes of filming them. Although he was unable to shower or turn a light on and had to remain very quiet so as not to scare off the tigers, the results were fruitful.
"The new method of studying tigers was quite sensational back then," he said.
Tracking their lives for 27 years has earned him a strong international reputation, but he felt that he was benefitting by taking advantage of the tigers.
"Siberian tigers in the wild try to avoid contact with humans and live secretive lives in forests and mountain ranges. The more I observed them, the more I felt bad about them. So I decided to spend the rest of my life protecting tigers and their habitat," he said.
Park eventually quit his job at EBS and established a non-profit organization called the Siberian Tiger Protection Society with a few other naturalists, including Dr. Galina Salkina, in 2011. It aims to conserve the remaining Siberian tigers in the world by getting rid of tiger traps, preventing wildfires and stopping poaching.
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| This tiger, dubbed "Kkori" by Park, killed a dog from a rural village in the Russian Far East in 2011 because he was starving to death. Courtesy of Gimmyoung Publishers |
Park stressed that his books are a better way to share his own experience with Siberian tigers.
"Many think that my books are supplementary to my documentaries. But I feel more affectionate about my books because they can convey my philosophical beliefs and fondness for tigers," he said.
"The limitation of video footage is that you get to edit and show only 1-hours' worth of footage after filming for more than 100 hours. In order to shoot for 100 hours, you need to devote 1,000 hours in research. Moreover, it's impossible to show the symbiotic relationship with a tiger," he added.
The 57-year-old conservationist admires science and nature writers, like Henry David Thoreau who wrote "Walden." For a general audience, he also recommends Ernest Thompson Seton's "Wild Animals I Have Known" and Nicolai Baikov's "The Great King."
Park shared some wisdom which he gleaned from tigers. At first, he observed and pondered things outside of himself, like the wind, ocean and grass. Then he came to explore his inner self more deeply.
"We should be humble in the face of nature and realize that we, like other creatures of life, are just a speck of dust in this vast universe. Humans cannot live alone, and therefore, we must respect all living things. Following Kkori's life, I realized that sadness, death and love are synonyms," he said.
The author already wrote the first manuscript for his third book, which criticizes global wildlife protection organizations and how they justify the use of traps by saying they are for research.
"It angers me because so many tigers are losing their lives or getting injured by automatic guns or traps that humans set up. When a tiger gets trapped in snare, it cuts off its own ankle to escape. When it gets injured, it cannot hunt so it comes down to the village and, eventually, gets killed. If 70 tigers get trapped, around 50 of them die," he said.
"It's hard to tell the exact numbers, but only about 530 Siberian tigers remain in eastern Russia and the bordering regions. There are approximately 50-60 in Manchuria and other parts of north-eastern China and 20-30 in North Korea. Together, we must protect these elusive felines before it is too late," he said.
