The Last Tiger in Russia and ALTA

As many of our readers may know, we donate a percent of all sales to nature and wildlife organizations. Past organizations we've supported include the Nature Conservancy, the National Audubon Society, Carbonfund.org, The Center for Biological Diversity, and Trees for the Future. For more about our charitable giving, please see this link.

This year, we'll be doing a special donation to an organization we recently discovered, ALTA or the Amur Leopard and Tiger Alliance, in honor of this new mixed media artwork, The Last Tiger in Russia. Here's more from Dolan about the story behind this work and the decision to support ALTA.

The Last Tiger in Russia
After reading John Vaillant’s book The Tiger, I was so moved that I decided to create this piece about the endangered life of the Amur Tiger. In the Russian Far East, the Siberian or Amur tiger must hold its own in the -30 degree temperatures while fending off wild boars, black bears, and its worst enemy, man. There is constant and increased pressure on this animal from poachers, habitat destruction, and loss of prey from over hunting. Not only is the Tiger in danger, but in the very same region it’s distant cousin the Amur leopard is in a much more precarious situation. There are only 34 remaining Amur leopards in the wild. These animals continue to be poached for their fur as well.

I created this piece to bring to light the facts about the Tiger, an animal which has at some time or another existed in our imagination. It is my hope that you will go home, do some research, and maybe try to help out in any way you can so that the Tiger can remain a reality, and not just the stuff off cartoons and folk tales.

There are several wonderful organizations who are trying to save these animals. One of these organizations is ALTA (Amur Leopard and Tiger Alliance). ALTA is a coalition of 13 international and Russian NGOs that have pooled resources to support conservation of Amur leopards and tigers in the wild. I will be donating 25% of the sale of The Last Tiger in Russia to ALTA. If you would like to find out more, check their site online: http://www.amur-leopard.org.

After posting a few tweets about the book, we were amazed by the number of individuals that responded saying they, too, had read the book and were deeply touched by the plight of the Amur Tiger and Amur Leopard. Have you recently read The Tiger by John Vaillant? Any thoughts you'd like to share?