Tigers Between Empires: The Improbable Return of Great Cats to the Forests of Russia and ChinaA Chicago Tribune Most Anticipated Book of the Season The thrilling saga of the great Amur tiger and the scientists who came together, across the world, to save it. The forests of northeast Asia are home to a marvelous range of animalsfish owls and brown bears, musk deer and moose, wolves and raccoon dogs, leopards and tigers. But by the final years of the Cold War, only a few hundred tigers stepped quietly through the snow of the Amur River basin.