MOSCOW – He’s driven a big truck, flown in a Russian fighter jet and fished shirtless on national television.

Now comes Vladimir Putin’s latest image-boosting escapade, a visit to a Russian wildlife preserve that gave him the chance to wear camouflage, stalk through the woods and shoot a tiger — all for a good cause.

According to Russian media reports, Putin, taking a break from lambasting the West over Georgia, was visiting the Ussuriisky Nature Reserve in the far east of Russia to see how researchers monitor the tigers in the wild. Just as Putin was arriving with a group of wildlife specialists to see a trapped Amur tiger, it escaped and ran toward a nearby camera crew, the country’s main television station said. Putin quickly shot the beast and sedated it with a tranquilizer gun.

“Vladimir Putin not only managed to see the giant predator up close but also saved our television crew too,” a presenter on Rossiya television said at the start of the main evening news. The 55-year-old former KGB spy, who cultivated a macho image during his eight years as the Kremlin chief, was shown striding through the forest in camouflage and desert boots before grappling with the feline foe.

The TV footage did not show Putin shooting the beast but did show him helping to measure the Amur tiger’s incisors before placing a satellite transmitter around the neck of the beast, which can measure around ten feet from nose to the tip of the tail.

In other news, Putin offers to save McCain from that Alaskan cougar that’s been following him for a few days. (Sorry, I took that directly from Fark.com, it was just too good to pass up).