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Unlike the wolf or the lion, the tiger is a solo stealth hunter and thus has a far more challenging task. Possessing neither the endurance to run down its prey nor the numbers to surround and harry it, the tiger must instead play the role of lone assassin. Complicating matters is the fact that his prey generally travels in herds, their senses acutely attuned to intruders and disturbances…. Thus the tiger must embody a contradiction: This large, pungent, extraordinarily charismatic animal must achieve a state of virtual nonexistence. Witnesses agree that there is something almost metaphysical about the tiger’s ability to will itself into nonbeing — to, in effect, cloak itself in invisibility.
— John Vaillant, The Tiger’s Revenge (adapted from The Tiger)
