NEW YORK (AP)- Bob Hoskins , the British actor who grappled with an imaginary bunny in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," goes looking for a fiercer challenge in tomorrow's edition of "Nature" on PBS.

"Tigers with Bob Hoskins" is typical of the series' commitment to making natural history accessible to a mass audience, letting us not only observe wildlife, but also how human beings connect with the natural world.

"Tigers" is a film essay about Hoskins and his visceral, almost primal bonds to one of nature's most ferocious predators.

"It's a personal journey," Hoskins said in an interview. "When we think of lions, we think of strength, nobility, all of those things. When you think of tigers, there's no words, only feelings."

Hoskins, a veteran of such films as "Mona Lisa," "Mermaids" and "The Long Good Friday," is a staunch conservationist who maintains his own wildlife preserve in England.

When he was approached by "Nature" about making a program about endangered species, the tiger was on his short list.

"I told them, 'I'll give you a choice of two-the tiger, or the kakapo,' " Hoskins said, his eyes merry.

"The kakapo is this big, crazy parrot in New Zealand who can't fly. He's the only one that doesn't know he can't fly, and he keeps jumping out of trees-so he's rapidly becoming extinct!

"That was what I wanted to do. Form a kakapo-encouraging society, with nets, to catch the kakapo. But no, they go with the tiger."

There was another, more serious reason Hoskins went after the tiger.

"I found out that unless something radical happens-and I can't see that it will-tigers are going to be extinct in 10 years," he said. "They're gone. And that's the end of that.

"What's strange is that some of the places we were, like Bali and Java, the tigers have been extinct for years, but nobody believes it. They're still seeing them, out in the jungle."

Hoskins investigates the fate of the tiger in the Indonesia archipelago, where the last tigers are confined to the island of Sumatra. He also examines how the "tiger culture" is integrated into the spiritual life of the people.

Hoskins and his film crew had to journey to Nepal, however, in the lowlands of the Himalayas, before he could see one in the wild. And thereby hangs a tale.

"We actually got charged by a tiger. I could actually smell its breath," Hoskins said. Viewers of Sunday's "Nature" will see the incident, but here's how Hoskins recalled it.

"It was my fault," he said. "We spent days looking for it. It was there. . . . We're talking about a cat that's 10 feet long, bright orange, and it's just disappeared! You know that you can't see them, but they can see you."

From the upper deck of an elephant, Hoskins, his guide and his elephant handler moved into tall grass where they had cornered the tiger.

"We knew the tiger was in there. It was a stupid, stupid thing to do. Even the elephant looked up at me, 'Stupid, what the 'ell do you think you're doin'?' "

"Suddenly, there was this roar. The elephant screamed-the roar of a tiger is something you've never heard before . . . and it literally does freeze you. Something came at us out of the grass.

"But, fortunately, the elephant leapt and hit it aside with her trunk and deflected it. . . . There were no guns there, nobody there to shoot it.

"When he charged us, the fellow behind me was just praying and the fellow in front just froze. . . . If it hadn't been for the elephant, we'd all be dead."

And the smile would be on the face of the tiger.