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The Current Transcript for August 30, 2016

Host: Robyn Bresnahan

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

Listen, the grandiose notion of self-worth, pathological lying, lack of empathy and remorse. I mean, basically we have a psychopath running for president. I mean, he meets the clinical definition, OK.

ROBYN BRESNAHAN: That is David Plouffe, the former campaign manager to Barack Obama. And for the record, not a certified psychiatrist. But he is just one of many this season willing to offer an armchair diagnosis of Donald J. Trump, the US Republican presidential nominee. As for psychiatrists themselves, there's actually a rule against them weighing in on the supposed mental well-being of high profile politicians such as Mr. Trump. But some in the profession say this year this candidate breaks the mould. And that the time has come to psychoanalyze the person who would be sending their sons and daughters into war. And that's where we're starting today. Then, on the trail of the Siberian tiger.

SOUNDCLIP

[tiger growling]

RB: If you do happen to be tracking a Siberian tiger, you're likely to hear that before you see anything. Which means the tiger could be tracking you. In half an hour, we'll meet a man who puts in hours, days, and months in unforgiving climates to track the elusive, threatened, and magnificent beasts. I'm Robyn Bresnahan sitting in for Anna-Maria Tremonti, and this is the summer edition of The Current.

Mental health professionals must speak out against 'Trumpism', says psychologist

Guests: Maria Oquendo, William Doherty

SOUNDCLIP

I actually think it's time to hear from somebody in the mental health community to look at this person who has been on television for months, and to give us a sense of what we have going on here. And, I'm sorry, let's stop pretending we're dealing with someone who we can completely understand.

RB: Well, that was Mika Brzezinski, co-host of the MSNBC show Morning Joe yesterday. And what she was saying there is quickly becoming a familiar refrain in the media. As the US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump routinely shocks, awes, and mystifies with his behaviour and pronouncements, many observers are saying forget about the tax returns and physical doctors assessments, what we need from Mr. Trump is a proper psychiatric assessment. And as this campaign unfolds, more and more psychiatrists are willing to proffer their diagnoses.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Dr. Gail Saltz where in the DSM do I turn to find this?

GAIL SALTZ: Well, let me first say I cannot diagnose Donald Trump. I don't know Donald Trump, but I would say that someone who spends time creating a very grandiose view of themselves, you know, I'm the best in business, I'm sexually the best, all the women want me, and will break the rules, lie, do something unethical, for the purpose of that it certainly makes you think about intense narcissism, right? Everything has to refer to me and I have to be the best.

RB: Well that was just one of many American psychiatrists who have been willing to share their thoughts about Donald Trump's state of mind. But the American Psychiatric Association is not impressed. Earlier this month the group issued a warning to its members, reminding them that it is against their own rules of conduct to psychoanalyze presidential candidates whom they've never met. No matter how exceptional this election cycle may seem. For more about this, I am joined by Maria Oquendo, President of the American Psychiatric Association. She is in New York City. Hello.

MARIA OQUENDO: Good morning.

RB: What do you make of the speculation that has been made about the mental state of Donald Trump?

MARIA OQUENDO : Well, I think that it's very tempting when you see someone who is very different in the way that they communicate and behave, to try to proffer some type of diagnosis. But I think that it's really very dangerous. And the reason we have ethical rules against it is that until you do a proper physical examination, including blood work and a physical, you really can't know what is causing the behaviour, or whether the person has a psychiatric diagnosis, or another kind of diagnosis. One of the examples that I like to give is for example, in an individual who has very high blood sugar, their behaviour may become very abnormal, even bizarre, and to an observer it may look like they have a psychiatric disorder. But in fact it's just that their diabetes is out of control. This is just one example of the many ways in which it can be deceptive to simply look at the behaviour, take it at face value, and try to make a diagnosis.

RB: At the same time, I wonder if you can sympathize with voters who want to have an insight into the deeper character of a possible president before they cast a vote?

MARIA OQUENDO : I think that it's very understandable that people really would like to understand the cause and the origin of the behaviour. But I would argue that for the voters purposes, what they need is already available. They need to look at the behaviour that's being exhibited today, regardless of its cause. And think about whether that is a behaviour that they feel comfortable with in a president. In a way, the actual underlying diagnosis, in my opinion, doesn't really add anything. And also is implicitly very stigmatizing, because the assumption is that if you have a psychiatric diagnosis, then you're not fit to serve. And I would argue that that's not really true.

RB: What have you been hearing? I mean, we just heard some clips there from real psychiatrists and also some armchair ones as well, but what have you been hearing about the presidential candidates that's worrying you?

MARIA OQUENDO : So what I've been hearing is many individuals, both professionals and not, offering a variety of diagnoses, and it worries me because we can't really know what it is. And because of obverse, the fact that this notion that if somebody has a diagnosis, they're by definition unfit to rule, I think is really problematic.

RB: You have invoked something that is called the Goldwater rule when you're talking about this. Just explain that rule to us.

MARIA OQUENDO : Well, it's interesting. It has a very interesting origin. It happened around about in the seventies it was brought about. And the origins are from when Mr. Barry Goldwater was running for president back in the sixties. And there was a magazine that ran a survey of a couple of thousand psychiatrists asking them if they thought that the candidate was fit to be president. And the magazine went on to publish that x number of psychiatrists thought that Mr. Goldwater was not fit to be president. Well, Mr. Goldwater sued the magazine and won. And in a way, that's beside the point. But the point really was that people were making diagnoses, professionals, psychiatrists, were making diagnoses having not had the benefit of being able to examine the person themselves, or to look at their medical and blood work. So, at that point some years later, the Association decided to give some guidance to its members in the form of the Goldwater rule, which states that if you have not personally examined an individual you are not qualified to make a diagnosis. And I'd like to point out that if you have examined the individual, you are bound by the rules of confidentiality.

RB: Right. So you still can't say anything about them, but are there any sanctions for psychiatrists who flout this rule?

MARIA OQUENDO : We have not done that. And what we've done is encourage our members to follow these ethical guidelines in their behaviour.

RB: To what degree is it possible, you keep you keep saying that you have to physically examine the person, but there are others who say well actually, so much diagnoses now is done by distance. So you can talk to friends, you can talk to families, you can examine behaviours to really see the mental state of someone. So why are you saying that it should not be from a distance, that you have to actually physically examine that person to be able to analyze them?

MARIA OQUENDO : I think that's a really important clarifying question. What I mean is that you have to interview the individual. And today telepsychiatry, where psychiatrists are evaluating individuals who are in a different state even, that can happen and it can happen well. But that's very different from simply observing behaviour, and not having the benefit of an interview. Whether it's an interview by video conference, by close circuit, or what have you.

RB: It's interesting, because you mention the word stigma and that you worry that if somebody is diagnosed with a mental illness, then somehow they are deemed not fit to run the country. But at the same time, you hear people talking about the need to reduce stigma by talking about mental illness more in society. And of course we see the voluntary release of select physical data becoming more commonplace in presidential elections. Some psychiatrists actually argue that when it comes to presidential candidates, people who have the power to send American sons and daughters to war, their mental health should be assessed too. What do you say to that?

MARIA OQUENDO : Well, what I would say is that in my view, the best possible outcome will be when psychiatric conditions are viewed on exactly the same plane as physical conditions. Because after all, they are illnesses of the brain and the brain is part of the body. And just like you wouldn't necessarily say that someone with a particular, let's say, cardiac condition is not fit. Hopefully in the future it will become clear that there are some psychiatric conditions, so for example, if somebody has, just to make an extreme example, declares that they have arachnophobia, they're phobically afraid of spiders, that's a diagnosis. But would you say that that's a condition that causes a person to be completely disabled? Probably not. And so it just gives you the idea that there's a lot of latitude here.

RB: Maria, what do you think is different about the atmosphere in this election that so many people feel the need to psychoanalyze the candidates?

MARIA OQUENDO : Well, I think that there are a lot of contentious statements that can be frightening to the public. And I think that that makes people, that ratchets up the anxiety of the public, in terms of trying to determine what's going on.

RB: At the same time, there seems to be a huge public appetite out there for this kind of commentary, whether it is politicians or celebrities. Just yesterday, experts were weighing in on whether the former congressman Anthony Weiner has some form of sexting addiction. So why do you think that is?

MARIA OQUENDO : Well, I think it's the public oftentimes is interested in not only these kinds of, the last example you gave is especially salacious, and of course is going to get a tremendous amount of interest and attention by virtue of the fact that it's about sex. But I think that there's always interest in things that are supposed to be hidden, secrets. And because mental health has been so stigmatized and in the shadows if you will, there's a lot of interest in it.

RB: Could you not argue that there are plenty of other things that psychiatrists should not be doing? You know, the example of interrogating terrorism suspects outside the traditional criminal justice system is one that comes up. I mean, why go to battle over this rule, the Goldwater rule?

MARIA OQUENDO : So, I'm very glad you brought that up because in fact the psychiatrists were not involved in that. And the American Psychiatric Association took a very strong position against that and issued several statements against the use of torture. It was really the American Psychological Association. And you know, it's interesting because many people confuse psychology and psychiatry. And yet they are kindred fields, but they're very different. A psychiatrist is a physician. They've gone to medical school and they have a very different background from a psychologist.

RB: Yet you think that actually psychologists should be able to follow this Goldwater rule as well right?

MARIA OQUENDO : I would think so.

RB: How come you say that?

MARIA OQUENDO : Well, because I think that it's part of our professional behaviour. In terms of if you're a clinician, and not all psychologists are trained as clinicians, for example there are experimental psychologists, and occupational psychologists, all sorts of different types. But if you're a clinician, and you're taking care of patients, think about also how your patient might view you if they hear you on the radio, on the TV, or in the newspaper, or see your words in the newspaper diagnosing someone who you've not seen.

RB: Maria, really interesting to hear your perspective. Thanks so much for your time this morning.

MARIA OQUENDO : Thank you.

RB: That's Maria Oquendo, she’s president of the American Psychiatric Association. And she was in New York City. Well, my next guest has also been following this debate over the Goldwater rule very closely. William Doherty is a psychologist and Professor of Family Social Sciences at the University of Minnesota. Earlier this summer, he created an online manifesto entitled Citizen Therapists Against Trumpism, which has been signed by some 2,400 other mental health professionals. And we have reached him at his home in St. Paul, Minnesota. Hello.

WILLIAM DOHERTY: Hello there.

RB: What do you think of what Maria Oquendo just had to say there?

WILLIAM DOHERTY: Well, I think it's quite reasonable at a certain level. I concur with her that it is not a good idea, it’s not appropriate to be using formal psychiatric diagnostic categories to refer to public figures, whose private lives we know nothing about. So that's where she and I agree. However, I think it's important for concerned mental health professionals, therapists, to speak out about the public behaviour and the public positions of Donald Trump. Which I think are quite destructive to the public mental health of our country and to our democracy. So I am not neutral on this at all as a mental health professional.

RB: So you say that it's OK to diagnose Donald Trump's personality traits, not him as a person. Can you just explain the difference to someone who might consider that to be splitting hairs?

WILLIAM DOHERTY: No, that's not actually, it's not what I said. I did not say diagnose. I'm not using the diagnosis word at all. Diagnosis is a particular label, you have to understand a lot about somebody, and you use a label that has been researched and is contained in our diagnostic manuals. I'm referring to describing, characterizing, critiquing the public behaviour. That behaviour that we all have access to. For example, the hyper masculinity that Donald Trump presents. The I’m always right, the other people who disagree with me are stupid or ill intended. The scapegoating of whole groups of immigrants. These sorts of things that are quite troubling to many Americans and others are fair game for commentary by mental health professionals.

RB: I wonder if I can put another example to you and where that fits on the scale of this, because Donald Trump is often called narcissistic. Is that OK?

WILLIAM DOHERTY: Well, if somebody wants to use that label, as a lay person’s label, that is absolutely fine. Because there is a category called Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I prefer to talk about this in other ways. See, somebody who would deserve that label has very troubled interpersonal relationships with spouses, with kids, with friends. I know nothing about that. So I prefer to stay away from those categorical terms like that. On the other hand, his public behaviour, his public behaviour is quite self-centered, quite self-inflating. That statement that I know more about ISIS than the generals, is a troubling public behaviour that the American people should look to think carefully about voting for somebody.

RB: Can you tell us a little bit more about this online manifesto against what you called Trumpism. First of all, what do you mean by Trumpism?

WILLIAM DOHERTY: Well, Trumpism is the political ideology and the kind of public positioning that's behind Donald Trump. That is likely not to go away if he loses the election. That's why, another reason why I don't want this just to be about some sort of diagnosis of Trump the man. So it is an approach, it's a cult of the strong man, which we saw in the 1930s and 1940s in Europe. The strong man who will singlehandedly handle the threats to our country, who will scapegoat on groups that are seen as threatening, who degrades and demeans opponents, appeals to fear and anger, and says trust me, I don't have to appeal to reason, I can appeal to fear. Trust me and I will solve your problems for you. That kind of authoritarian streak in what's behind Donald Trump is likely to remain, which is another reason why we should not just make this about him.

RB: What are you hoping to achieve with this manifesto?

WILLIAM DOHERTY: I'm hoping to achieve something that did not happen in Europe in the 1930s. The rise of fascism was met with cold silence by mental health professionals. In fact, it was a trip to Germany and Austria in May that impelled me to write this manifesto, and recruit now 2,500 therapists to sign it, when I saw neo fascist youth, uniformed youth marching on the streets. When I visited a concentration camp, when I visited Freud's house and watch videos of him fleeing Nazi Germany. And what I came to learn is that mental health professionals were silent, stayed in their offices, did not speak out publicly during that era. And I see Trumpism as a American brand of fascism, and I decided not this time. No silence this time from mental health professionals. Kind of just saying, well we're not qualified to speak.

RB: Some 2,400 of your colleagues agree with you. They have signed your manifesto, but you have heard from other colleagues who are angry. They see this move as partisan, that you're trying to get Hillary Clinton elected. What do you say to them?

WILLIAM DOHERTY: Yes, I say OK. You know, that's their view. These are conservative therapists who dislike Hillary very much, and view any public critique of Trump as trying to get her elected. What I say if they're willing, some of these folks are so angry they're not willing to engage, but what I say, is that if any of the other 17 Republican candidates were now running for president, I would not be doing a manifesto against Bushism, OK? Or Ted Cruz, or anybody else. There is something different about Donald Trump and what he represents. Where, that says to me, we should not follow the normal routines, that the mental health professionals do not speak out together and publicly. This is different.

RB: Do you think the Goldwater rule needs to be changed, amended in any way?

WILLIAM DOHERTY: Not in it's kind of specific literal sense, no. And that is making a formal psychiatric diagnosis of a public official, when you have no access to that person's private life, I think is a bad idea. I think it's distracting. I completely agree with what your prior guest said. However, I think it has had a chilling effect on the citizenship behaviour, if you will. That's why I call this a citizen therapist manifesto. Because we are clinicians who work with people in private, and in confidentiality, but we are also citizens of a country. And I wish that lawyers were speaking out, I wish that physicians were speaking out, teachers were speaking out. I talked to teachers to see Trump-related bullying in schools, with kids using Trump's labels. Our clients, our patients are suffering, the immigrants we see and others from this. So, the Goldwater rules have a chilling effect on the willingness of mental health professionals when necessary, when it's called for to speak out.

RB: William, it was good to talk to you this morning. Thanks very much for your time.

WILLIAM DOHERTY: My pleasure.

RB: That was William Doherty, he is a psychologist and Professor of Family Social Sciences at the University of Minnesota. And he spoke to us from St. Paul, Minnesota. Well, the news is next. And then, it takes almost infinite patience to track down and photograph the Siberian tiger. We will meet one man who has devoted his life to doing just that, and efforts to protect the threatened giant cats. I'm Robyn Bresnahan sitting in for Anna-Maria Tremonti, and you are listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Extro]

ENCORE: Researcher tracks Siberian tigers for months crouched in freezing hole

Guests: Chris Morgan

ROBYN BRESNAHAN: Hello, I'm Robyn Bresnahan sitting in for Anna-Maria Tremonti, and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

RB: Up next, tracking the elusive Siberian tiger.

SOUNDCLIP

CHRIS MORGAN: Oh my goodness. It’s small, so small. How long did you stay in here?

SOOYONG PARK: First year, I stayed seven months.

CHRIS MORGAN: Seven months. [exhaling]

SOOYONG PARK: Here. But one time, maybe two or three months I wait here, I didn't see any tigers. Only I see raccoon, dog.

CHRIS MORGAN: Racoon, dog, ahh.

RB: Chris Morgan is an ecologist and TV host, and he's talking there with Sooyong Park, a filmmaker and researcher, who has dedicated much of his life to tracking endangered Siberian tigers. He studies their habits, their movements, and their general well-being. But Sooyong Park's methods are somewhat unconventional. He spends months at a time crouched in a hole in the Siberian wilderness, alone, waiting for one of the elusive tigers to appear. Sooyong Park has written about the tigers in a book called Great Soul of Siberia. He told us he wasn't comfortable enough to do an entire interview in English, so Anna-Maria Tremonti spoke to Chris Morgan, who spent a month with Sooyong Park for a documentary film called Siberian Tiger Quest. And here is that conversation from last November.

AMT: Tell me about this guy Sooyong Park, who is he?

CHRIS MORGAN: Well, he's one of a kind, for sure. He's a really unique individual. He was a filmmaker, still is a filmmaker from South Korea, and he just became very passionate about Siberian tigers and set about reaching and attaining his goal of filming them in the wild. And it was something that hadn't ever been done before, so he had a task on his hands. But he did it by sitting in holes in the ground for months at a time, or in tree hides, literally with patience that's almost unimaginable. When we first met him we thought he was going to be some kind of half crazed guy, but we met this character and he was the most zen, tuned-in, level headed, calm person you can imagine. I think it's perhaps because he'd spent so much time in a hole in the ground waiting for a tiger to walk by. [chuckling] So, it was a really extraordinary story that we heard from a film festival in Vladivostok, and then pursued. And it led to this really memorable experience spending a month with him, learning about tigers over there.

AMT: OK, well let's hear a little bit more from Sooyong Park from your film. This is where he's showing you his living conditions.

SOUNDCLIP

SOOYONG PARK: I prepare some cooked rice.

CHRIS MORGAN: And you took--

SOOYONG PARK: [interposing] I prepare 300 pocket like this.

CHRIS MORGAN: 300 bags of rice.

SOOYONG PARK: Uh huh. I eat two times per day. And I prepare nuts [unintelligible].

CHRIS MORGAN: And that was it? This is all you ate?

SOOYONG PARK: Uh huh. I have toilet.

CHRIS MORGAN: Toilet. OK, that was my next question. What do you for a toilet? [laughing] I’m so intrigued.

SOOYONG PARK: [laughing] Toilet. Per weeks maybe one or two times, I toilet. I bring some special pape--

CHRIS MORGAN: [interposing] Paper.

SOOYONG PARK: Over there.

CHRIS MORGAN: Yeah.

SOOYONG PARK: And, pocket like this. [scrunching sounds]

CHRIS MORGAN: Yes, plastic bags. Yeah, hopefully not the one with the knots in it.

SOOYONG PARK: One time again, eliminate all smell, and to the basket.

CHRIS MORGAN: What was the temperature? What was it like?

SOOYONG PARK: Outside minus 30 degree, inside minus 30 degree.

CHRIS MORGAN: Minus 30? [incredulous] Wow.

AMT: OK, minus 30 degrees in this little tiger hide. Tell us a little bit more about where he's living while he's doing this work, Chris Morgan?

CHRIS MORGAN: Well, he's basically in this hole in the ground, and it sounds crazy and unbelievable, doesn't it? And when we arrived there we still couldn't quite believe it, but he took us out to his hide, and that's where we filmed that sequence. And he just describes it very very calmly, about you know, how he would spend six months in this hole in the ground, in the winter when it's minus 35. But what amazed me most was not that he would spend six months in total, or seven months at times in total, in one of those holes in the ground, but that he would wait sometimes two or three months before he even saw a tiger, before he saw his first tiger. So he had to persevere for two or three months before even getting the you know, the stimulation that he was really there to look for, in order to stay for that full six or seven months. I mean, it was unbelievable. And it just brings a smile to my face hearing that stuff, it flashes me right back, and the disbelief in my face as he's telling this story--

AMT: [interposing] Yes, about even how he has to you know, go to the bathroom and then make sure, because there can be no smell or the tigers will know, right?

CHRIS MORGAN: That's right. I mean, and it was literally a hide, and literally his home. This thing I could hardly sit up straight in you know, it was just above my head. And the hole in the ground, you know, he covered it with branches and planks that he brought in, and then vegetation and very much camouflaged it. Had a hole out of the front window, and he would sit there and wait for a tiger to arrive. He had done enough research during the rest of the year to figure out that it was the most likely spot for a tiger to show up you know, because they have pretty traditional routes around their territories. But these territories can be huge you know, a tiger can have a 2000 square kilometre range. And so, him predicting where that tiger would be, and sometimes finding a kill and placing his hide near that kill was really extraordinary. So he was a real fieldworker, a guy who really knows tigers and their behaviour.

AMT: And what would he do all day as he waited for a tiger then?

CHRIS MORGAN: He read a lot, he told. He read a lot of books. So, I understand he had a pile of books, just that he would just plow through. And he would just stare and be calm and sort of, he would almost, he was very tuned in man, almost in a Buddhist type way. He would almost will the tigers in. So I know he did a lot of focused sort of thinking, and looking, and searching, and that's definitely the sense that you get from him.

AMT: Well, he studied literature for years and years, didn't he?

CHRIS MORGAN: Right. Yes, yeah. And he became a cameraman for the equivalent of sort of public television in South Korea, and then pretty much gave it all up for this entire focus on tigers. And in fact, when we arrived and we were hiking around the mountains, and he was showing us the realm of the tiger that he worked in there, in Primorsky Krai, that southeastern portion of Russia there. When he arrived, he'd just come out of a hole in the ground in South Korea. And he was trying to prove that there were still tigers in South Korea. So literally his muscle tone was down, and he said these hikes are hard for me, because I've been in a hole in the ground in South Korea, you know. It was quite something, [chuckling] unbelievable willpower.

AMT: Who does that? What motivates him?

CHRIS MORGAN: That's hard to say, other than, I mean, you’ll see in clips in the film and certainly in his book, it really comes through that he's so passionately dedicated to these tigers. There aren't many of them left, you know, there are maybe 500 of them left in the wild. They are completely isolated from other tigers. They’re something quite special and he gets that. But more than that, he seems to have this, what's different about him is he has this very personal relationship with individual tigers. And he is someone who has studied them in depth, from their pockmarks, you know, their tracks, their scat, their claw marks on trees, the guy can smell tiger pee on a tree from a hundred metres away, you know. His field skills are off the charts. But he's also got this very connected sort of, almost spiritual feeling of family with these tigers. He feels for them.

AMT: Talk to me a little bit about that bond, because he named them. And there's one tiger in particular, Bloody Mary. Tell us about Bloody Mary.

CHRIS MORGAN: Yeah, Bloody Mary he named after the English Queen that had a sort of notoriously heartless reputation. Bloody Mary would leave a lot of blood around in her kill sights, more than your average tiger, and that's where the name came from. But she just became, which is kind of ironic, because she became one of the closest sort of tigers to Park, literally and figuratively. And he didn't feel really in danger when he was in her area and within her home range. And for some reason he had kind of this trust, and some extraordinary things happened to him with Bloody Mary, that sort of built that relationship. And again, almost unbelievable stories.

AMT: Bloody Mary has three cubs.

CHRIS MORGAN: Sky white, snow white, and moon white.

AMT: So, three cubs and he over time, he watches them. And we should say too, that he's put cameras on trees, like motion sensor cameras, so he`s catching stuff, like not only from the tiger hide, but from around.

CHRIS MORGAN: Yeah. And that was the magic thing you know, when we first saw his footage, it wasn't just sort of distant shots of a tiger from a from a camera that is you know, half a mile away or half a kilometre away. It was very intimate stuff. And what he did was he put remote cameras out on trees, and then he would film from another direction. So he was able to edit between those three cameras, which made it look like there was a whole team surrounding a tiger. But it was oftentimes these remote cameras that triggered when a camera when a cat walked into it. So, he would cleverly place these cameras onto a kill, knowing that that tiger wasn't far away and would be back. And then he'd go back to his pit, film the tiger from a distance. And then so what you have is this incredible sort of multi-angle shot of a tiger's behaviour. And he would get to know them intimately and even their family relationships. Because he would spend so much time in the field just watching. I mean, slightly different with science and scientists. And I've done a lot of radio tracking, and capturing of bears and other carnivores myself. And so, you know, your focus becomes studying an animal from a distance, that sort of thing you know, when you've got them radio collared. But with him it was very much a visual thing, and very much spending time there, months at a time, in order to get the experiences and the film clips that you wouldn't be able to get otherwise.

AMT: And we should say you're an ecologist, you do a lot of work with bears, very large carnivores, but you make the point in the film that a bear can be a snack for one of these tigers.

CHRIS MORGAN: [laughter] It was pretty intimidating you know, walking through the forests there. And talk about hairs literally stand up on the back of your neck, when you know you're possibly being watched by a tiger. But not just that, but that they eat the species that you study mostly, and that's grizzly bears. You know, in one study there was one male tiger that more than anything else in his diet was brown bear, you know, the Russian equivalent of our grizzly bear. So, yeah. It was kind of intimidating thinking that. These are formidable animals, some of them can weigh 700 pounds you know. They measure three metres, nose to tail. And so, they're incredible carnivores. They are the peak of that forest there, and they help to make everything tick, like any like any large carnivore at the top of its chain.

AMT: And of course, there is an encounter that Park has with the family of Bloody Mary, with Bloody Mary and the family that is terrifying. Here is a clip of him telling you the story of having tigers on top of the hole in which he is hiding.

SOUNDCLIP

SOOYONG PARK: Young tiger come up my roof. When one tiger come up, the plank is bounding.

Two tigers come up, more bounding. Three tigers, broken.

CHRIS MORGAN: The planks broke with three tigers on the roof?

SOOYONG PARK: Broken.

CHRIS MORGAN: [laughing]

SOOYONG PARK: Tiger’s leg inside.

CHRIS MORGAN: Your heart is going. [chest tapping]

SOOYONG PARK: But, he was surprised more. Quickly go out. Because he didn’t think this is hole, this is pit.

AMT: You kind of laugh there, but it's a little bit of a nervous laugh. What did he tell you about that encounter with the tiger family?

CHRIS MORGAN: Well, it was probably the most intense thing that Park ever went through. As you can imagine, because he was filming them from a reasonable distance from this pit, this hide. And so I was sitting in this hide with him, as he was recounting it. I mean, it was nervous laughter from his part and my part. I mean, you could see that he was right back there in the moment and the whole family. So bear in mind, this is Bloody Mary the mother, and then Sky White, Snow White, and Moon White, her three cubs. All which are pretty good size at this point you know, so pretty formidable in their own right, approaching his hide. He's got his legs sticking out of the hole in the hide and Bloody Mary comes right up to him, smashes the camera out of his hand, injures his hand, he's still got the scar on his hand to show it. He didn't want to move, so he didn't pull his arm in quickly, he still wanted to maintain this sort of hide presence and not freak her out. She brushed her head, her face against his hand, and he describes how he could feel her whiskers and her breath on the back of his hand. I mean, it sounds like something out of a make believe storybook.

AMT: It’s terrifying, and in the book.

CHRIS MORGAN: They all end up on his roof, yeah.

AMT: Did he think that she knew that his hand was, how could she not have known that was a hand?

CHRIS MORGAN: She must have known. I think he's as perplexed by it as anybody. I mean, it just seemed like he was a sitting duck in that hole in the ground, and you would think that a large carnival like that, especially when there’s four of them would see him as easy prey. But it just didn't unfold in that way. And so they end up on his roof, and one of the cubs’ legs bursts through the roof, because it was sort of caving in slightly with the weight of these tigers on his roof. And you can only imagine him sitting there on his own, middle of nowhere, basically you know, left to his own devices and this leg bursts through the roof. And he said thankfully the tiger was more surprised than he was, which is hard to believe. But the tiger pulled its leg right out and then ran off, but only a short distance. And he said that they spent the whole night right by his hide, but didn't bother him.

AMT: He stayed absolutely still, because he knew that Bloody Mary was there, even though he couldn't see her.

CHRIS MORGAN: Yeah, probably could hear her breathing through the night.

AMT: It's extraordinary. And this guy is in this, we call it a hide, it's basically a ditch, right? It's like, no deeper than a ditch. A little ditch.

CHRIS MORGAN: Yeah, sort of a rectangular shaped hole in the ground, a pit he would call it. Yeah. With this sort of makeshift roof on the top of it. And you know, as he describes his food piled up in one corner, and his waste piled up in the other end. And an assistant would come by every few weeks and he would radio him in and say OK, it's safe to come, there's no tigers around that you might disturb. The assistant would come in and deliver him more bags of rice and salt and nuts, and take away his waste. And at times it became, it was such an isolationist or isolating experience for Park, that he said he couldn't even look his assistant in the eyes at times. You know, because he felt like he might want to just throw in the towel and leave with him, you know. It was an emotional thing. And he himself, even though he was a very individual, sort of loner type guy, in our film he says I don't think people are designed to be on their own.

AMT: So, what happens to Bloody Mary?

CHRIS MORGAN: Sadly Bloody Mary ends up being poached. One of the things that's not uncommon over there with tigers being poached, is that they're killed by a rifle trap as it's called. So it's a trip wire attached to the trigger of a rifle that is facing the tiger as it goes over that trip wire. So they end up being shot. It's just the most horrific end to an amazing creatures’ life. But uh--

AMT: [interposing] How did he respond to that? To the poaching, the killing of Bloody Mary.

CHRIS MORGAN: Oh, when he heard, his assistant told him and he went in to verify. He came out of his hole in the ground to go and verify that it was Bloody Mary. And it was. And he was in tears and he, you know, it was like losing a family member, literally for him. It was that strong a connection that he had with her. Then Sky White, the male cub of Bloody Mary was also poached. Snow White, the female, left the area and Moon White stuck around. So, I think, you know, it just shows that these tigers are up against the odds here, you know, with only 500 of them left in the wild. It’s Park’s work that can really put them on the map, in terms of the visuals that we have of these amazing family oriented animals that depend upon their mothers for years, that need to know their territory and really need to learn how to be a tiger. And we don't have any other visual reference in the way that that Park accomplished with his film. So it's just extraordinary stuff.

AMT: Well, tell us a little bit more about the kinds of behaviours that he's managed to document that nobody had ever seen before.

CHRIS MORGAN: I think one of the main things was he was really proud and surprised himself, of how he was able to capture their family interactions. So you know, the mother would roll around with these cubs like you might see them in captivity, you know, quite relaxed and playful and clearly a sort of heartfelt connection there. Which is strange to say as a scientist you know, but as you see that with animals all the time, for people to say that they're heartless and don't have these emotions and connections with each other, it's just crazy. You know, so he was able to document some of these family interactions in a really unique way for the first time. That was one of the biggest things that he was proud of.

AMT: And why are the tigers under so much of a threat?

CHRIS MORGAN: You know, I called it the wild east over there as opposed to the wild west. You know, you can't go any further east in Russia. 200 miles away across the sea is Japan. And it feels like you're in a very very wild isolated area, and you are. But there's a large city, Vladivostok just a few hours away. And there are pressures on that forest, and not just on the tigers. But you know, interestingly enough there’s poaching of the prey of tigers which threatens the tigers. There's poaching of the tigers. And more than that, there’s even illegal logging going on, so poaching of the trees themselves. So you know, one of the trees that sort of supports this entire ecosystem, it’s called the Korean pine tree, and everything that the tiger depends upon, depends upon that tree. They eat the pine nuts from the Korean pine. And so this ecosystem is propped up by this tree. And then you know, the elk eat them, the wild boar, the sika deer, and then the tigers eat them. So you know, if you don't have the trees and you don't have to pray, you don't have the tigers. So they're facing it from all sides, and it’s like a melting piece of ice, the forest over there. You know, there's a lot of illegal poaching and a lot of illegal logging going on, it has an immediate effect.

AMT: And then the tigers themselves they go for a lot of money, right? For the bone and for bits of the tiger are sold.

CHRIS MORGAN: Tiger body parts are you know, it's just an extortionate amount of money that they go for. Everything down to the baculum, which is the penis bone, and the hide and claws, teeth. Every part of that animal is used for something, whether it's traditional Chinese medicine or other uses. And so they're worth a heck of a lot of money, many thousands of dollars to a poacher. So it's worth their while spending time out in those forests trying to trying to take them, and they do.

AMT: You spent a month in the wilderness there. What happened? Did you sense a tiger, did you see a tiger?

CHRIS MORGAN: Well, it was funny actually, when he was prepping me for my time without him, and I felt a bit like a lost child when he left, [laughing] but when he was prepping me for that time of looking for a tiger, and you know, tuning me into what I needed to know. I've done lots of wildlife tracking of various species around the world, but never with tigers, and it had been a dream of mine to do that. So I was learning from the master, it was just fabulous. But at one point, I say to him, I really want to see a tiger. And he looks at me and you know, he had this wonderful humour, he said you really want to see a tiger? I said yes, I really do. And he said OK, sit here for three months. [laughing] And so of course I couldn't do that, I had a month. So what I had to do was put out remote cameras, and try and find a tiger by capturing its moving images on a remote camera. So I would attach them to trees and drainages where I thought tigers might move through. I would look for hair on trees and look for pockmarks, you know, tracks, and look for scat, and other tiger sign. Place tigers out, and we had them out for about three weeks, and every Russian that we met said, you will not see tiger, you will never see tiger, you'll never capture tiger on camera. We weren't expecting very much. And in fact, for the film everybody was fine with the fact that we might not have seen a tiger, and that we might never capture one on a remote camera. So I check all of these SD cards from each of the cameras that we set out, and I kid you not the last day, the last SD card, oh it was just a mind blowing moment. I captured this tiger, just eight seconds of it walking across this frozen river. And I was, it was unbelievable. You know, we had to film every card that I looked out, just in case one showed up, we wanted my sort of live reaction to finding that tiger. And so we filmed a lot of SD cards, and we checked on a lot of SD cards and this was the last one.

AMT: He could tell by the gate of the tiger that you caught on film who it was.

CHRIS MORGAN: Yes, yeah. Yes, exactly. It was one of the daughters of Moon White, one of the daughters of Bloody Mary, which was just incredible, you know so. But yeah, we were very very happy. It was a very moving thing, you know. I was in tears looking at the footage there, and just you know, knowing how few of those cats are around, and the odds of us getting one within the month that we were there was wonderful. But not sure I could have done what Park did you know, I mean, that took real patience and resilience. But we were really happy to have just captured one on a remote camera. And just knowing it was there. Just down the river from where we were camped out was pretty incredible.

AMT: And we talked about the how the tigers reacted to it thinking he might be in the hide and they went after the camera. But what would happen if a tiger were to spot you and Park in the forest. Would they have just moved away from you?

CHRIS MORGAN: The tigers have become so elusive there, because over time it's only the shy ones that survive. If you're bold and brazen and out in the open, you don't survive, you’re shot. So genetically these are the shyest tigers. So, you do feel like they're watching you, but you'll never see them.

AMT: What about the conservation efforts around these big cats? What's going on on that front?

CHRIS MORGAN: Yeah, there's a lot of really good work by incredible conservation organizations, like Wildlife Conservation Society and others, and Russian biologists in the field there, and even Zoological Society of London. There's a lot of groups focused on these tigers, because they're iconic. And to me, and to them, I suppose, my thinking is if we can't save an animal like the Siberian tiger on this tiny planet that we share, then there’s perhaps not much hope for any of us. We've lost 93 per cent of the tigers in the last 100 years. In the year 1900, there were about a 100,000 tigers. Now there are just over 3,000. It's unimaginable to me to picture a planet without them on it. And so, you know, just bringing these tigers into people's living rooms and homes and lives through Park’s book, and the film that we made with him, I think is just a really essential step in having people understand just how precious these cats are, and how few of them there are.

AMT: Chris Morgan, good to talk to you. Thank you.

CHRIS MORGAN: Thank you so much.

RICHARD MISRACH: Chris Morgan is an ecologist and TV host whose documentary film is called the Siberian Tiger Quest. He spoke to Anna-Maria Tremonti in November. And if you want to see photos of the tigers you can visit our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent. Well, that is our program for today. I am Robyn Bresnahan sitting in for Anna-Maria Tremonti, thanks very much for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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August 30, 2016 full episode transcript

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