The elite tiger hunting corps of Korea’s Joseon Dynasty, which ruled for five centuries beginning around the year 1400. As always, we’ll talk about the job itself, but we’ll focus more than usual on the job’s place within its cultural and historical contexts. The human-tiger relationship in Korea always has been rich and complex. While having posed a deadly threat to human life and limb over the centuries they roamed the Korean peninsula, Tigers also symbolized everything from traditional Korean values to its people, and the nation’s geography itself. Once plentiful, wild tigers are believed to be extinct in Korea. As such, in our conversation today, we’ll touch on all the usual suspects:  economy, trade, and culture, but we’ll do so from the unique perspective of conservation biology.

Music by Devlin & Kelly Valleau