Lions, and Tigers, and Ocelots - Oh My!

Fierce Beauty is a celebration of tigers, leopards, lions, ocelots, and other wild cats that inhabit The Institute of Greatly Endangered and Rare Species (TIGERS), a wildlife preserve in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

The institute's fifty acres are home to more than one hundred rare animals, from ligers (a hybrid cross between a male lion and a tigress) that stretch nearly twelve feet long to cheetahs capable of running seventy miles per hour, safeguarding them from the poachers, habitat destruction, and population fragmentation that threaten their existence.

Despite their place atop the food chain, big cats teeter on the brink of extinction. Where more than 100,000 tigers lived in Asia at the start of the twentieth century, fewer than 4,000 exist today.

Featuring exclusive new portraits from preeminent nature photographers Tim Flach and Barry Bland, Fierce Beauty provides readers with an intimate, unobstructed encounter with the beauty, power and grace of nature's big cat masterpieces.

The text includes contributions form such distinguished conservationists as zoologist Jim Fowler; David Barron, founder of the International Conservation Caucus Foundation; and Stephen J. O'Brien, Chief of the Laboratory of Genomic Diversity at the National Cancer Institute, among others.

Together, these fascinating and complementary perspectives form a compelling case in support of the critical service rendered by private wildlife facilities in caring for and preserving nature's many endangered big cats.

Fierce Beauty
Preserving the World of Wild Cats

by Bhagavan "Doc" Antle

Photography by Tim Flach and Barry Bland

Foreword by Robert Duvall 

Hardcover | 246 pages | $50.00