The most famous man-eating animals, terrible cases of attacks. Retired in Kenya
Perhaps there is not a single person interested in big cats who would not know the name of Jim Corbett. Corbett's views on the tiger and its place in nature were far ahead of their time. But first, a few words about life path native-born Englishman, as Rudyard Kipling called such a breed of people.
Jim Corbett was born in 1875 in India, in the town of Naini Tal, where his parents had a summer cottage in the mountains; the house was located 25 kilometers below, in the town of Kaladhungi, in the Terai zone of the foothills of the lowland forests. This area was called Garhwal and Kumaon and became famous thanks to Corbett and his man-eating tigers. Big family was of average income. His father passed away when Jim was four years old. The burden of care fell on the shoulders of the mother. The boy was introduced to the world of the jungle by Tom, his older brother, and also by the poacher Kunwar Snngh. Tom brought up his brother in a Spartan way: he took the baby once on a bear hunt and left him alone for several hours in a gloomy, dark ravine. Jim was convinced that the bear would certainly eat him, and when he first saw the beast, he was ready, by his own admission, to die of fear. But he did not leave the place until the arrival of Tom.
By the end of his Jungle Book training, Jim was no longer confusing the tracks of a sambar or a nilgai with those of a wild boar, but a track of a red wolf with a hyena. He could even recognize the tracks of snakes. To move silently, Jim walked through the jungle barefoot; he learned to climb trees without branches, that art allowed him to maintain excellent physical shape even in adulthood.
In his youth, Corbett hunted for pleasure, and when he was poor and starving (and his life was like that), he shot game, not really adhering to hunting ethics. With maturity, knowledge, his inherent love and respect for all living things, the conviction came that one should not take life unnecessarily. He began to hunt only man-eating animals.
From 1907 to 1939, Jim Corbett killed 12 tigers and man-eating leopards, which accounted for 1,500 people. Corbett did his work disinterestedly (he constantly feared that he would be considered one of the many hunters for the award) and during the holidays: he was then still working on the railroad. Immediately after high school, Jim joined the railroad as a fuel inspector and later worked as a contractor at the Mokameh Ghat junction station.
The archives have preserved a family photograph of the Corbetts: on a veranda lined with pots of flowers, Jim was located at the feet of his mother with a boater hat, his idol brother Tom and sister Maggie, as well as a certain Mary Doyle, were right there. Corbett did not have his own family, in any case, he never wrote about it. Maybe the reason for this was the hunt, which lasted months and years! Corbett devoted himself completely to them, having retired in 1924, settling in Kaladhungi among peasants who rented land belonging to the Corbetts.
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Jim Corbett
TEMPLE TIGER
INSTEAD OF EPIGRAPHS
1. “Soon, the tiger extended its paw forward, followed by another, then very slowly, without lifting its belly from the ground, pulled itself up to the prey. After lying motionless for several minutes, still not taking his eyes off me, he felt the tail of a cow with his lips, bit it off, put it aside and began to eat ... The rifle lay on my knees with the barrel in the direction where the tiger was, I just had to raise it to my shoulder . I could do it if the tiger took his eyes off me for a moment. But he was aware of the danger that threatened him and, without taking his eyes off me, slowly, but non-stop, ate.
2. “... a group of twelve Europeans with battle rifles passed me by. A few minutes later they were followed by a sergeant and two soldiers with flags and targets for shooting. The sergeant, a kind soul, informed me that the people who had just passed were heading to the training ground and that they were holding together because of the cannibals.
3. "In general, tigers, except for the wounded and cannibals, are very good-natured."
J. Corbett. " temple tiger»
TEMPLE TIGER
Anyone who has never lived in the Himalayas does not realize how great the power of superstition over people in this sparsely populated area. But various kinds of beliefs professed by educated inhabitants of the valleys and foothills differ little from the superstitions of simple illiterate highlanders. In fact, the difference is so small that it is difficult to decide where belief ends and superstition begins. Therefore, I would ask the reader, if he has a desire to laugh at the ingenuousness of the participants in the event about which I am going to tell, to wait and try to establish whether the superstitions I have described differ in any way from the dogmas of the religion in which he was brought up.
So, after the First World War, Robert Ballears and I hunted in the interior of Kumaon. On a September evening we camped at the foot of Trisul, just at the place where, we are told, eight hundred goats are sacrificed every year to the spirit of that mountain. There were fifteen highlanders with us. Never before on a hunt have I had to deal with such cheerful and zealous people in the performance of their duties. One of them, Bala Singh, a Garwalian I have known for a number of years, has accompanied me on many expeditions. He was especially proud of the fact that during the hunt he carried the heaviest bale of my luggage and, stepping ahead, cheering the others with singing. In the evenings at halts, before going to bed, our people always sang around the fire. That first evening at the foot of Trisul they sat longer than usual. We could hear singing, clapping hands, shouting and banging on cans.
We decided in advance to stop at this place in order to hunt tars, so we were extremely surprised when, sitting down for breakfast in the morning, we saw that our people were preparing to break camp. When asked to explain what was the matter, they replied that this site was not suitable for a camp, that it was damp, the water was undrinkable, fuel was difficult to obtain, and that, finally, there was a better place two miles away.
My luggage had been carried the day before by six Garhwalians. I noticed that now things are packed in five bales, and Bala Singh is sitting by the fire separately from everyone else with a blanket thrown over his head and shoulders. After breakfast I went to him. The others stopped their work and began to watch us with intense attention. Bala Singh saw me approaching, but did not even try to say hello (which was unusual for him) and answered all my questions only that he was not sick. We made the two-mile march that day in complete silence. Bala Singh brought up the rear and moved like sleepwalkers or drugged people.
What happened to Bala Singh also depressed the other fourteen people, they worked without their usual enthusiasm, tension and fear froze on their faces. While we were setting up the tent in which Robert and I lived, I took aside my Garhwal servant Moti Singh - I had known him for twenty-five years - and demanded that he tell me what had happened to Bala Singh. Moti shied away from answering for a long time, saying something incomprehensible, but in the end I pulled a confession out of him.
As we sat by the fire last night and sang, said Moti Singh, the spirit of Trisul jumped into Bala Singh's mouth and he swallowed it. Everyone started shouting and hitting tin cans to exorcise the spirit, but we didn't succeed, and now there's nothing to be done.
Bala Singh sat to one side, the blanket still covering his head. He couldn't hear my conversation with Moti Singh, so I approached him and asked him to tell me what had happened to him the night before. Bala Singh looked at me for a moment with despairing eyes, then said hopelessly:
It is useless to tell you, Sahib, what happened last night: you will not believe me.
Didn't I ever believe you? I asked.
No, he replied, you have always believed me, but you will not understand this.
Understand or not, I still want you to tell me in detail what happened.
After a long pause, Bala Singh replied:
Okay, Sahib, I'll tell you. You know that when our mountain songs are sung, usually one person sings, and all the rest pick up the chorus in unison. So, last night I sang a song, and the spirit of Trisul jumped into my mouth and, although I tried to push it out, slipped through my throat into my stomach. The fire burned brightly, and everyone saw how I struggled with the spirit; the rest also tried to drive him away, shouting and hitting the cans, but,” he added with a sob, “the spirit did not want to leave.
Where is the spirit now? I asked.
Putting his hand on his stomach, Bala Singh said with conviction:
He is here, Sahib. I feel him tossing and turning.
Robert explored the area west of the camp all day and killed one of the Tars he encountered. After dinner we sat up into the night discussing the situation. For many months we have been planning and dreaming about this hunt. Robert is seven and I have been on foot for ten days on difficult roads to the hunting place, and on the very first evening upon arrival here, Bala Singh swallows the spirit of Trisul. It doesn't matter what Robert and I thought about it. Another thing was important - our people believed that the spirit was really in the stomach of Bala Singh, so they shunned him in fear. It is clear that hunting in such conditions was impossible. So Robert, though very reluctantly, agreed that I should return with Bala Singh to Naini Tal. The next morning, having packed my things, I had breakfast with Robert and went back to Naini Tal. The journey there was supposed to take ten days.
Leaving Naini Tal, thirty-year-old Bala Singh was a cheerful and full of energy man. Now he returned silent, with an extinct look, and his appearance spoke of the fact that he had completely lost interest in life. My sisters - one of them was on a mission to help medical care They did everything they could for him. He was visited by friends, both those who came from afar, and those who lived nearby, but he sat indifferently at the door of his house and spoke only when he was addressed. At my request, he was visited by the district doctor of Naini-Tala, Colonel Cook, a man great experience and a close friend of our family. After a long and careful examination, he declared that Bala Singh was physically perfectly healthy, and he could not determine the cause of his apparent depression.
A few days later, an idea struck me. At that time, a famous Indian doctor was in Naini Tal. I thought that if I could persuade him to examine Bala Singh and only then, after telling about what had happened, ask him to suggest to the "sick" that there was no spirit in his stomach, the doctor would be able to help the trouble. This seemed all the more feasible since the doctor not only professed Hinduism, but was himself a highlander. My calculation was wrong. As soon as the doctor saw the "patient", he immediately suspected something was wrong. And when, from the answers to his cunning questions, he learned from Bala Singh that the spirit of Trisul was in his stomach, he hastily recoiled from him and, turning to me, said:
I am very sorry that you sent for me. I can't do anything for him.
In Naini Tala there were two people from the village where Bala Singh lived. The next day I sent for them. They knew what had happened because they visited Bala Singh several times, and at my request they agreed to take him home. I provided them with money, and the next morning all three set out on their eight-day journey. Three weeks later Bala Singh's countrymen returned and told me what had happened.
Bala Singh reached the village safely. On the first evening after arriving home, when relatives and friends gathered around him, he announced that the spirit wanted to be freed and return to Trisul, and the only thing left for him, Bala Singh, was to die.
And so, they concluded their story, Bala Singh lay down and died; the next morning we helped burn it.
Edward James "Jim" Corbett was an English hunter, conservationist, naturalist, and writer.
Known as a hunter of cannibals and the author of a number of stories about the nature of India.
Corbett held the rank of colonel in the British Indian Army and was repeatedly invited by the government of the United Provinces to exterminate man-eating tigers and leopards in the regions of Garhwal and Kumaon. For his success in saving the inhabitants of the region from cannibals, he earned the respect of the inhabitants, many of whom considered him a sadhu - a saint.
Jim Corbett was an avid photographer and film lover. After his retirement, he began to write books about the nature of India, the hunting of cannibals and the life of the common people. british india. Corbett also actively campaigned for the defense wildlife India. A national park was named in his honor in 1957.
Youth
Jim Corbett was born to an Irish family in Nainital, Kumaon, in the foothills of the Himalayas in northern India. He was the eighth of thirteen children in the family of Christopher and Mary Jane Corbett. The family also had a summer home in Kaladhungi, where Jim spent a lot of time.
Jim was fascinated by wildlife since childhood, he learned to distinguish between the voices of birds and animals. Over the years, he became a good hunter and tracker. Corbett attended Oak Openings, later renamed Philander Smith College, and St. Joseph's College with Nainital.
Before the age of 19, he left college to work for the Bengal and North Western Railway, first as a fuel inspector in Manakpur, Punjab, and then as a reloading contractor at Mokameh Ghat station in Bihar.
Hunting for man-eating animals
Between 1907 and 1938, Corbett is documented to have hunted down and shot 19 tigers and 14 leopards officially documented as cannibals. These animals have been responsible for the deaths of more than 1200 people. The first tiger he killed, the Champawat man-eater, was the cause of the documented death of 436 people.
Corbett also shot a Panar leopard, which, after being wounded by a poacher, could no longer hunt its usual prey and, having become a cannibal, killed about 400 people. Other cannibals killed by Corbett include the Talladesh Ogre, the Mohan Tigress, the Tak Ogre, and the Chowgar Man-Eating Tigress.
The most famous of the cannibals shot by Corbett was the Rudraprayag leopard, which for eight years terrorized local residents and pilgrims bound for Hindu shrines at Kedarnath and Badrinath. An analysis of the skull and teeth of this leopard showed the presence of gum disease and the presence of broken teeth, which did not allow him to hunt for his usual food and was the reason that the beast became a cannibal.
After skinning a man-eating tigress from Taka, Jim Corbett discovered two old gunshot wounds in her body, one of which (in the shoulder) became septic, and, according to Corbett, was the reason for the transformation of the animal into a cannibal. Analysis of the skulls, bones, and skins of man-eating animals showed that many of them suffered from diseases and wounds, such as deeply pierced and broken porcupine quills or gunshot wounds that did not heal.
In the preface to The Kumaon Cannibals, Corbett wrote:
“The wound that forced the tiger to become a cannibal may be the result of an unsuccessful shot by a hunter who then did not pursue the wounded animal, or the result of a collision with a porcupine.”
Since sport hunting of predatory animals was widespread among the upper classes of British India in the 1900s, this led to the regular appearance of man-eating animals.
In his own words, Corbett only once shot an innocent animal in the deaths of people, and he was very sorry about it. Corbett noted that man-eating animals themselves are capable of chasing the hunter. Therefore, he preferred to hunt alone and pursue the beast on foot. He often hunted with his dog, a spaniel named Robin, about which he wrote in detail in his first book, Kumaon Cannibals.
Corbett risked his life to save the lives of others, thus earning the respect of the population of the areas in which he hunted.
Participation in the First and Second World War
During World War I, Jim Corbett went to France at the head of a 500-man detachment he had formed and led the 70th Kumaon Labor Corps. His leadership was very successful, and of the people who arrived with him from India, only one person died during the whole time, and even then because of seasickness. In 1918, Corbett was promoted to the rank of major.
When did the second World War, Jim Corbett was already about 65 years old and was not subject to the draft. But he still offered his services to the government and was elected vice president of the district military assistance fund.
In February 1944, Corbett was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and assigned as chief jungle warfare instructor. In March 1944, he was sent to Burma to study a potential theater of operations. Later, he was engaged in the training of fighters in the Chhindwara region of the Central Provinces and at various military bases. About a year later, due to an aggravation of malaria, Corbett was forced to leave the army and return home.
Retired in Kenya
In 1947, Jim Corbett and his sister Maggie moved to Nyeri, Kenya. Corbett continued to write books and work as a conservationist, speaking out against the deforestation of the jungle.
Jim Corbett was at the Tree Tops Hotel, built on the branches of a giant ficus, when Princess Elizabeth stayed there on February 5-6, 1952, on the day of the death of her father, King George VI. Corbett left an entry in the hotel register:
“For the first time in world history, a young girl, once climbing a tree as a princess, descended from it the next day as a queen - God bless her!”
Jim Corbett died of a heart attack on April 19, 1955 at the age of 79, days after completing his sixth book, Tree Tops. He is buried in the cemetery of St. Peter's Anglican Church in Nyeri, Kenya.
Heritage
Corbett's home in the Indian village of Kaladhungi, Nainital, has been turned into his museum. The 221-acre piece of land that Corbett bought in 1915 is still in its original state. Also preserved in the village are the house that Corbett built for his friend Moti Singh, and the Corbett Wall, a 7.2 km long stone wall that protects the village fields from wild animals.
In 1957, Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand, India, was renamed in honor of Jim Corbett. In the 1930s, Corbett played a key role in establishing this protected area.
In 1968, one of the surviving subspecies of the tiger, the lat, was named after Corbett. Panthera tigris corbetti, the Indochinese tiger, also known as the Corbett's tiger.
In 1994 and 2002, the long neglected graves of Jim Corbett and his sister were repaired by Jerry A. Jalil, founder and director of the Jim Corbett Foundation.
The Champawat tigress is a female Bengal tiger that lived in the late 19th century in Nepal and India. She is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most bloodthirsty of all man-eating tigers - in a few years she killed at least 430 people.
No one knows why the tigress began to attack people. Her attacks began suddenly - people who walked through the jungle began to disappear at once in dozens. Hunters and soldiers from the Nepalese army were sent to fight the tigress. They failed to shoot or catch the predator, but the soldiers were able to drive the tigress from Nepal to Indian territory.
And here's what happened next...
In India, the tigress continued her bloody feast. She became bolder and attacked people even during the day. The predator simply wandered around the villages until she came across another victim. Life in the region was paralyzed - people refused to leave their homes and go to work if they heard a tiger growl in the forest.
Finally, in 1907, English hunter Jim Corbett shot a tigress. He tracked her down near the Indian city of Champawat, where the tigress killed a 16-year-old girl. When Jim Corbett examined his hunting trophy, he found that the right upper and lower fangs of the tigress were broken off. Apparently, this made her hunt people - ordinary prey is not available to a tiger with such a defect.
- In the city of Champawat, there is a "cement slab" that indicates the place of death of the tigress.
- You can read more about the Champawat tigress and the hunt for her in Jim Corbett's autobiographical book The Kumaon Cannibals.
And now a little about the personality of the hunter himself!
Edward James "Jim" Corbett -
famous man-eating animal hunter in India.
These animals have been responsible for the deaths of more than 1200 people. The first tiger he killed, the Champawat man-eater, was the cause of the documented death of 436 people.
Corbett held the rank of colonel in the British Indian Army and was repeatedly invited by the government of the United Provinces to exterminate man-eating tigers and leopards in the regions of Garhwal and Kumaon. For his success in saving the inhabitants of the region from cannibals, he earned the respect of the inhabitants, many of whom considered him a sadhu - a saint.
Between 1907 and 1938, Corbett is documented to have hunted down and shot 19 tigers and 14 leopards officially documented as cannibals. These animals have been responsible for the deaths of more than 1200 people. The first tiger he killed, the Champawat man-eater, was the cause of the documented death of 436 people.
Corbett also shot a Panar leopard, which, after being wounded by a poacher, could no longer hunt its usual prey and, having become a cannibal, killed about 400 people. Other cannibals destroyed by Corbett include the Talladesh Ogre, the Mohan Tigress, the Tak Ogre, and the Choguar Ogre.
The most notorious of the cannibals shot by Corbett was the Rudraprayag leopard, which terrorized pilgrims on their way to the Hindu shrines at Kedarnath and Badrinath for more than a decade. An analysis of the skull and teeth of this leopard showed the presence of gum disease and the presence of broken teeth, which did not allow him to hunt for his usual food and was the reason that the beast became a cannibal.
Jim Corbett at the body of a man-eating leopard from Rudraprayag he shot in 1925
After skinning a man-eating tigress from Taka, Jim Corbett discovered two old gunshot wounds in her body, one of which (in the shoulder) became septic, and, according to Corbett, was the reason for the transformation of the animal into a cannibal. Analysis of the skulls, bones, and skins of man-eating animals showed that many of them suffered from diseases and wounds, such as deeply pierced and broken porcupine quills or gunshot wounds that did not heal.
In the preface to The Kumaon Cannibals, Corbett wrote:
The wound that forced the tiger to become a cannibal may be the result of an unsuccessful shot by a hunter who then did not pursue the wounded animal, or the result of a collision with a porcupine.
Since sport hunting of predatory animals was widespread among the upper classes of British India in the 1900s, this led to the regular appearance of man-eating animals.
In his own words, Corbett only once shot an innocent animal in the deaths of people, and he was very sorry about it. Corbett noted that man-eating animals themselves are capable of chasing the hunter. Therefore, he preferred to hunt alone and pursue the beast on foot. He often hunted with his dog, a spaniel named Robin, about which he wrote in detail in his first book, Kumaon Cannibals.
Corbett risked his life to save the lives of others, thus earning the respect of the population of the areas in which he hunted.
Corbett's home in the Indian village of Kaladhungi, Nainital, has been turned into his museum. The 221-acre piece of land that Corbett bought in 1915 is still in its original state. Also preserved in the village are the house that Corbett built for his friend Moti Singh, and the Corbett Wall, a 7.2 km long stone wall that protects the village fields from wild animals.
Among other important nutrients, human flesh contains iron, vitamin B12, phosphorus, and zinc. In addition, our body is interesting source squirrel. If some predators could talk, they would say that these succulent and clumsy bipeds are surprisingly easy prey when hunting.
It was in the order of things millions of years ago, according to archaeologist Julia Lee-Thorpe and Nicholas Van der Merwe from the University of Cape Town and paleontologist Francis Thackeray Transvaal from the Museum in Pretoria (South Africa). According to experts in the journal "Journal of Human Evolution", when studying the concentration of isotopic carbon in the tooth enamel of some prehistoric predators savannas, it has been established that during two and a half million years ago, leopards were at least ancient diverse hunters like hyenas and, quite possibly, extinct saber-toothed tigers, have already stalked and devoured primitive great apes.
Video. Notable man-eating animals
Paleontologist Charles Kimberlin Bryan, whose research disproved early suggestions that these primates were at the top the food chain, he writes about this in his book "Hunters or Pursued?" The predator Dinofelis was the unsurpassed killer of hominids (great apes). Brian says that this predator, whose appearance may remind us of a modern jaguar with large forelimbs, attacked hominids one by one, which he also practiced with baboons, and then dragged their bodies to his lair. Over time, people not only learned to deftly avoid ambushes, but also to kill the offender. However, this does not mean at all that we have ceased to be part of the predator's informal menu.
Lions have killed 563 people in Tanzania
Lion pride in Tanzania
In 1932, a town called Njombe became famous throughout the world. According to a legend retold from mouth to mouth, the lions then arranged a bloody feast, they were allegedly led by the local healer Matamula Mangera. Because his people rejected him, he decided to punish them by sending lions on them. Frightened by this news, people were afraid to even mention lions, so that fears would not be translated into reality. People turned to their leader to reinstate the medicine man in his position, but he refused. The lions again and again continued to attack the tribe, multiplying human casualties, according to estimates, a total of 1500 people died from the claws of lions (according to other sources - 2000 people). At the request of the leader of the tribe, the then-famous hunter George Rushby agreed to help the people. In total, he killed about 15 lions, the rest fled and left the land. However, local residents believed that the lions left them only because the leader nevertheless agreed to restore the healer to his previous position.
A study conducted by specialists from the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the University of Minnesota (USA) showed that in Tanzania alone, lions have killed 563 people and injured 308 over the past 15 years. The researchers point out that the most likely cause of the attacks was an increase in the number of people. Indeed, these attacks took place mainly in agricultural areas from March to May, when crops rise and ripen in these agricultural areas. According to biologist Craig Packer, who has studied animal attacks on humans, they typically occurred where the number of animals that feed on felines like zebras or impalas, as well as wild boars, has declined. These artiodactyls are also part of the lion's diet when other prey is scarce, and they are considered a general scourge among the local population, who often camp out to protect their crops from the voracious wild pig. This, of course, forces farmers to hunt lions. In addition, they plan to reduce the population of feral pigs, researchers warn that if this is not corrected, it could undermine all efforts to save and protect tigers.
Video. Investigation film about lion attacks in Tanzania
A tiger with a reputation as a cannibal: the Champawat tigress
Champawat tigress and the hunter who killed her
Very distant Indian national park The Sundarbans became one of the last strongholds of another mammal that has earned a reputation as a cannibal - the Bengal tiger. It is estimated that out of about 400 people who lived in the reserve and in the surrounding areas fell victim to it.
Of all the subspecies of tigers, the Bengal tiger has acquired the most worst reputation, the reputation of a cannibal. It was reported that "at the same time, in some parts of India, in early XIX centuries, cannibals were so common that it seemed that the main question was whether a man or a tiger would survive. Every night, bonfires were lit, which surrounded the villages and the indigenous people. When traveled large groups, they were fully armed and they beat drums to scare away cats.
In the 1930s, tigers killed between 1,000 and 1,600 people every year, causing panic among the population. One famous tigress, known as the Champawat tigress, killed about 200 men and women, after which she was expelled from Nepal. She moved to another place, this time to India and continued to kill, after she was hunted down and killed in 1937, total victims rose to 436.
Jim Corbett, a famous hunter but also a passionate conservationist, is responsible for killing the Champawat man-eater and many other man-eating tigers and leopards, he hunted for thirty-five years.
Upon his arrival at the village where the tigress killed her last victim, he found a virtual ghost town with residents who locked their huts and no one dared to leave them for a week. The tigress wandered along the roads near the village, growling and terrifying the inhabitants.
Her last victim was a 16-year-old girl gathering wood. After searching for the tigress in the thorn bushes, Corbett came across the remains of a human leg. “In all the following years I hunted cannibals,” Corbett wrote, “I have never seen anything sadder than a young beautiful leg bitten off just below the knee, it was done so cleanly, as if it had been cut off with an axe.”
A later examination of the tigress showed that the upper and lower fangs on the right side of her jaw were broken: one upper half, one lower right down to the bone. Corbett claimed that these injuries "prevented her from killing her prey, which was the cause of cannibalism." Eventually, Corbett tracked down and killed the tigress.
As for the current situation, about 50 people become prey for tigers every year. According to some estimates, this number at the beginning of the last century was 16 times higher if these magnificent cats, 3 meters long and 300 kilograms in weight, were not so poor in food. However, everything indicates that tigers prey more on buffalo and deer, but not on people. Only 3% of people killed by tigers were eventually eaten. In any case, you should not joke with life in the Sundarbans. Among the non-lethal means used to prevent attacks from aggressive tigers is the use of bright masks with huge eyes that are placed on the back of the head. The idea is that tigers in this area tend to pounce on unsuspecting humans and plunge their claws into their backs unless they are wearing a similar mask. Tigers begin to fear that they will be noticed and will continue to watch the person.
But why do animals attack people? Concerning big cats, sick, injured or old individuals, according to experts, are more likely to attack people to eat them. This is especially true among various kinds tigers, which, unlike lions, are solitary predators. Loss of teeth is another reason that can lead to hunting easier prey than usual. However, a large number of attacks occur when the predator is defending its lair, when it is frightened, or while trying to hunt livestock (its owner is trying to stop it). However, there are cases when you can "praise" a predator for its amazing cunning and cruelty.
panar leopard
Panarian cannibal
This man-eating leopard was a male, as stated for several years in the Kumaon region, located in North India, he killed and ate over 400 people. In fact, in the 20th century, after being wounded by a poacher, he was in a state where he could no longer hunt normally. The Panar leopard was tracked down and killed in 1910 by big cat hunter and writer Jim Corbett.
He became the most famous of all man-eating leopards, followed by the Kahani man-eating leopard, which killed 200 people, the Rudraprayag man-eater, 125 people (also killed by Jim Corbett in 1925). According to Jim Corbett in his famous book The Temple Tiger, the Panar leopard operated in very remote areas, where most often the local police did not report the killings, and therefore some information about the victims was published by the government very late.
Jim Corbett managed to track down the leopard on his first attempt, but he returned a few months later and succeeded on his second attempt under very unfavorable and appalling circumstances. The leopard had to be shot in complete darkness, after the shot he was wounded. Corbett tracked him down at night under very unfortunate circumstances and he finally managed to kill this devil.
The murder of workers, which found its reflection in the cinema
Patterson next to one of the lions
In March 1898, in East Africa The company, on the orders of the chief engineer, Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson, began building a railway bridge across the Tsavo River in Uganda. The colonialists hoped that the railroad would encourage people to move deep into Africa and that it would be an excellent option for transporting trade products between Africa and Europe. Thousands of workers (called "coolies") were brought in from India to lay railway, it was planned to stretch it for 580 miles, cross several rivers and valleys.
For nine months, the attacks of two brave and bloodthirsty lions continued, which even at night penetrated the workers' tents, thereby threatening the progress of work. Indian workers erected protective fences around their camps, known as boma, made from thorny acacia branches and fires burned all night, but the lions still found loopholes and made their way into the workers' camps. In one incident, one of the lions made his way into the tent and attacked a sleeping worker, but in the confusion, instead of the worker, dragged away his mattress, but when he realized his mistake, the lion threw the mattress and ran away.
Despite the efforts of workers who built lion protection around the camp, the lions found a way around them. The traps designed by Patterson proved useless. In the end, he was able to kill the first lion on December 9, and the second 3 weeks later. For all the time, 140 workers were killed and eaten by these lions. Patterson kept the skulls of both lions and used their skins as carpets. In 1924 the skins of the lions were sold to the Field Museum. natural history in Chicago for $ 5,000, where they were stuffed, in 1928 they were put on public display and they are now reminiscent of those bloody times. Patterson himself in his book "Cannibals from Tsavo" described this case, and then a film was made. Bwana Devil(1952) and The Ghost and the Dark (1992), starring Michael Douglas and Val Kilmer.
In 2009, a team of biologists was able to chemically analyze hair and skin samples from samples taken from the museum, and they used isotope ratios to determine chemical composition proteins in the diet of lions recent months their lives. They came to the conclusion that one of the lions ate about 11 people, and the other about 24. This means that one of the lions mainly ate herbivores and only one third of his diet came from people, while the other, on the contrary, almost two thirds of his diet were people.
Although the reasons that made these animals cannibals are unknown, experts at the Field Museum of Natural History believe that two factors are the reason. On the one hand, an outbreak of rinderpest, which killed millions of zebras and gazelles shortly before. In addition, workers who died during construction were often poorly buried, which may have provided an accessible source of food for the lions.
However, the latest study of the remains of these lions reports that the lions preyed on humans because of dental problems and not because of hunger or other problems.
Meat grinder in the swamps of Ramri Island (Burma)
Massacre on Ramri Island
Members of the feline family have earned a sinister reputation due to the death a large number people than any other predator, but this is not so. It is estimated that for every person who dies due to a tiger attack, there are 100 deaths from snake bites. In fact, the most famous wild animal attack on humans isn't even related to mammals. It happened in February 1945 on a swampy island in South-East Asia, in the habitat of saltwater crocodile.
The Japanese troops that were at that time on the island of Ramri were surrounded by British troops and it is not possible to imagine that the onslaught of the enemy was the least of the problems that existed on the island at that time. Naturalist Bruce Wright, who was in the area on board a motorboat, recalls with incredible horror the time after 19.20: large reptiles and a blurry terrible noise of their movements was heard. At dawn, we were able to watch the scavengers clean up the human remains left behind by the crocodiles." Of the approximately 1,000 Japanese soldiers who went into the swamps to try to escape the siege, only 20 survived. Today combed crocodiles or saltwater crocodiles (lat. Crocodylus porosus), continue to be the most dangerous animals for humans. The fact is that adult males, which can exceed 5 meters in length, are able to catch with their huge jaws, armed with 66 teeth, even a buffalo weighing almost a ton.
Video. Crocodile Slaughter: Crocodile Attacks on Ramri Island
Shark feast in the Pacific
Shark attack in the Pacific
Five months after the massacre at the Rumry Islands, the sailors American ship "Indianapolis" faced a similar fate. On July 16, 1945, the US cruiser left San Francisco with several containers carrying some parts of the "Kid" bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima on August 6. Leaving her cargo on Tinian (Northern Mariana Islands), the Indianapolis set sail, performing maneuvers. However, shortly after midnight on 30 July, she was hit by two torpedoes fired from a Japanese submarine. It sank in just 15 minutes.
Of the 1199 people on board, about 900 escaped, they were injured, severe burns. The shipwrecked began to group together to survive in the water. At dawn, the first appeared tiger sharks, some superpredators of which can reach 5 meters in length. Although some witnesses claim that when there were at least two hundred sharks in the waters, dehydration was not as dangerous as sharks.
Captain Lewis Haynes, the ship's doctor, reported that "night things were shocking in the dark. In the report, I read that some destroyers sent 56 mutilated bodies." Further it was even worse, on August 2, the plane spotted the survivors. The seaplane crew, after splashing down, lifted the people who hung from the wings of the aircraft on parachute lines, they took as much as they could. After five days of constant attacks, rescuers found that only 317 men had survived.
This case with the crew "Indianapolis" found its reflection in the 2016 film The Cruiser.
Today means mass media shark attacks on people near beaches are periodically reported. And, although the threats of hunting hyenas and saber-toothed tigers date back to the distant past, there are still large predators capable of awakening in us the primitive atavistic fear of being eaten.
Gustav - the largest crocodile in Africa
The only photo of Gustav
Gustav is the name nile crocodile, a giant that lives in Burundi. For the past 20 years, Gustav has been terrorizing the people of Burundi, dodging hunters and escaping death in Lake Tanganyika. The crocodile was named Gustave by the Frenchman Patrice Faye, who lived in Burundi for about 20 years.
Presumably Gustav is 7 meters long and weighs about 1000 kg. It is believed that he is the largest crocodile in Africa and even in the world. His age is also difficult to establish, it is generally accepted that he is 70-100 years old. Gustav was hunted many times and tried to kill him, he is easily recognizable by the characteristic scars from bullets: one on his head and three on his right side.
Gustav is a wonderful cannibal and has more than 300 human victims on his account. Although this number is most likely an exaggeration, Gustav has acquired an almost mythical status and is greatly feared by many locals. Legend has it that he developed a taste for human flesh by feeding on corpses in the water killed during the civil war.
Faye has been trying to catch a crocodile for 11 years and has already become a local hero. He has now changed his strategy and no longer wants to kill Gustav, but he intends to attach a sensor to the animal in order to follow his tracks. At one point, Faye tried to trap Gustav with a trap used in Zimbabwe to hunt giant crocodiles. But he did not manage to deceive the animal. Despite the fact that Gustav approached the trap, he never fell into it, in the end, it became so heavy that it sank to the bottom of the river.
In the words of a Frenchman "we live in an era in which creatures like him are becoming increasingly rare". Faye says that when he followed the crocodile for three months, Gustav ate 17 people. Faye believes that if he has been killing people at the same rate for 20 years, he has already eaten more than 300 people. But the Frenchman says that Gustav has already spent longer periods without eating a single person.
According to Patrice Fayet, the huge size of the animal means that there is not enough food in the form of fish in the lake to satisfy its hunger. In addition, being so huge, he has become slow and therefore has no other choice but to hunt down easier prey. There is no easier prey in the water than humans. So perhaps it's not a matter of taste, but rather a question of what he can hunt down and kill.
Gustav is depicted in the crocodile film Primal Evil (2007), where the giant crocodile is presented as an exaggerated version of Gustav the crocodile, as a predator that preys on humans even on land, among other things, which are pure fiction and exaggeration of the film.
First shark attack on humans, New Jersey
A photo. Captured 10 foot shark
It is considered one of the first and more famous stories shark attacks on people, it happened in 1916. At that time, little was known about the nature of sharks and, in principle, they were considered safe for humans. During this incident, several sharks attacked people, usually their attacks were not coordinated in any way. It all started on the American coast in New Jersey, when the first attack was made in shallow water, where 25-year-old Charles Vincent was swimming with his dog. Several people witnessed this attack, members of his family, as well as a lifeguard who rushed to help the man. The shark persisted and only swam away from its prey when rescuers arrived. shark by its own sharp teeth severed the femoral artery, and there was literally no flesh left on the other leg. The guy died of blood loss before he was taken to the nearest hospital. It was an unheard of occurrence at the time.
Five days later, the same shark makes its second attack 45 miles north of the first site, with Charles Bruder as its victim. Witnesses of the tragedy at first thought that the red canoe capsized, but as it turned out, it was bloody water around the man. The shark completely bit off both legs, the man died before he was pulled out of the water to the shore. From what he saw, one woman fainted. Scientists at the time thought killer whales did it, but not sharks.
The next attack took place no longer at sea, but in a local stream that flows into the ocean, which is not far from the city of Matawan. Some people reported seeing a shark in the stream, but no one believed them. On July 12, an 11-year-old boy was dragged underwater by a shark. Local residents gathered near the stream, but no one dared to get the child, Stanley Fisher decided on this noble cause. He jumped into the water and was immediately attacked by a shark, he died from his injuries.
The latest victim was a teenager, it happened just 30 minutes after the attack on Fischer. And despite the serious injuries received, the boy managed to survive, he was the only person survivors of this series of murders. A female white shark was caught in Matavan Creek on July 14th with human remains (15 kilograms) still in her belly. Not everyone believed that it was the same shark. To date, scientists believe that White shark could only be responsible for the first two incidents, the last one in freshwater was most likely a bull shark, as it is adapted to survive in freshwater and is more aggressive than the white shark.
It was from this time that the reputation of the white shark turned into a number of "cannibals" and the so-called shark panic began. This incident was the catalyst for Peter Benchley's writing of the novel "Jaws", later Spielberg made the film "Jaws", based on the novel of the same name. Since then, people who have seen this film have been cautiously swimming in the open ocean, and this continues to this day.
Revenge of the Brown Bear Kesagake
Killer bear at one of the houses
It is generally accepted that in Japan the giant wasp is the most dangerous wild animal, even more than the brown bear, an average of 40 people die from a giant wasp per year. The year 1915 in Japan became really bloody, especially for the local population of the village of Sankebetsu, which is located on the island of Hokkaido. At that time, this settlement was small, brown bears lived nearby, and one of them was the largest male, like Kesagake.
This bear periodically came to the corn crops and ate it, which caused discontent among the Japanese. One day, two daredevils decided to kill him, but all they managed to do was to injure a wild animal that had hidden in the mountains. The residents decided that such actions would force the bear to stop and it would no longer disturb their crops, but they were wrong.
On December 9, 1915, the Kesagake bear returned to the village. He went into Farmer Ota's house and attacked the child first, and then chased the farmer's wife, who frantically fought him off with sticks. He took her to the forest anyway. When people entered the house, they saw nothing but blood there. 30 people went to the forest to find the bear and kill him, they tracked him down and wounded him again, they also managed to find the hidden body of a woman, which was found under the snow, apparently he hid the body to eat after.
The next time the bear had already gone to another house, where it was less expected to meet him, it was the house of the Miyuoke family. Not all people died, some managed to escape after all. As a result, two children were killed in this house, but also a pregnant woman who carried another child under her heart. At this time, the hunters were at the house of the farmer Ota and thought that the bear would return there, but even then they were mistaken. As a result, six people were killed in two days. The villagers were wildly horrified, many people lined up around the perimeter locality, did not want to remain at their posts and simply fled from them.
The famous hunter at that time was informed about the incident and at first he refused to help the residents of the village of Sankebetsu, but soon agreed and on December 14 he managed to track down the bear and kill it. The bear turned out to be very large, it reached a height of 3 meters and weighed 380 kg, and there were still human remains in the stomach. The deaths stopped, but some died from their wounds. The village never entered the modern region and became a ghost village. Even today, this incident is considered the most horrific of all wild animal attacks on humans in human history.
To date, history brown bear Kesagake is reflected in local folklore, his name can also be heard in numerous plays and novels, comics. In addition, everything in this village has remained since the attack of the bear, the situation in the affected houses has been preserved, even the wooden sculpture of the bear (pictured) can still be seen near one of the houses.
Mysore sloth
Mysore cannibal
Sloth bears (due to appearance they are often called sloth bears) are quite outwardly charming. No one would have thought that these bears are capable of not only killing a person, but also eating him, albeit partially. They like to eat fruit more than meat. It's a pity that they see a predator in a man. This is possible because of the many generations when our ancestors hunted them. The sloth bear reacts to people in the same way that it reacts to tigers and leopards. It will growl loudly and then either retreat or become angry, and when a sloth bear attacks, it will use its large claws and the head and face of a person will be the first to suffer.
The Mysore sloth began attacking people in the Nagwara mountains, east of Arsikere, in the Indian state of Mysore. He settled in an area that was inhabited by people, and he lived there for a short time before he started attacking people. Those who survived the attack usually lost their eyes and parts of their nose, and those who were killed often had no face, it was torn off and partially eaten.
The bear became so bloodthirsty that it eventually caught the attention of renowned hunter Kenneth Anderson, who made it his personal mission to track down and kill the bear. Anderson had to organize a hunt for him three times in order to track down and successfully kill the cannibal. The beast has killed at least 12 people and another twenty have suffered from its claws.
Alligator-eater two-toed Tom
Alligator that killed a lot of people
It's hard to find real glimpses of the existence of this American alligator, nicknamed Two-Toed Tom. Many believe that this story more fiction than the truth. In the twenties, centuries passed in the swamps between Alabama and Florida, this alligator reigned. He received his nickname from the local population, after he once fell into a trap and lost all his fingers, only two fingers remained on his left paw, which is why he always left a characteristic mark on the ground. In length, it reached 4 meters, and in width - half a meter. The locals were afraid of him and compared him to the demon that came after them.
He earned his bloody fame by eating livestock like cows and mules, and of course people. Women suffered the most from him, because he liked to hunt them when they rinsed clothes in a pond. Of course, people tried to kill him, but even the bullets did not take him, as if they ricocheted from the skin of the beast. One day, a farmer who had been tracking him for 20 years tried to kill him with dynamite. He dropped as many as 15 buckets of dynamite into the pond and blew them up, everything in the pond died, but not Tom. It was only a few minutes when that farmer heard cliques nearby, he immediately rushed to the voice, but all he saw was Tom's sinister eyes plunging under the water. After some time, a half-eaten body was found there, it was the daughter of a farmer, apparently she was standing on the shore.
Rumors of Tom's bloody tricks haunted the immediate neighborhood for several more years. Even years later, in the eighties, they reported that they allegedly saw an alligator with two fingers. Many hunters have tried to kill that crocodile to decorate their trophies with Tom's two-toed paw. But Tom was never caught.
A photo. Gevaudan beast in art
From 1764 to June 1767, a huge wolf killed 80 people and injured 113 people (different sources give different numbers). The Beast of Gévaudan (French: La Bête du Gevaudan) is known to have attacked exclusively women and children living in isolated cottages and hamlets while tending animals and harvesting crops in the open fields. Men and cattle were not to his liking. Although no, there were sheep and goats.
Witnesses told how the beast attacked unexpectedly, sometimes from above, usually in broad daylight. After he killed, he disappeared into dense patches of forest and hills covered with grass.
Just like the fictional dog of Conan Doyle, this creature was somewhat similar to ordinary dogs and wolves, but different from them and looked scarier. Eyewitnesses reported an animal with a smooth dark body, strong athletic legs, a long thin tail and a huge head studded with powerful teeth. Others recalled it as an animal with reddish-brown fur and stripes running down the back. Some said that the Zhevodan beast attacked quietly, while others spoke of a terrible high-pitched bark, like a horse neighing. His exploits quickly spread throughout the country, reaching even Ludwig XVI at Versailles, who instructed the hunters to kill the beast.
The Zhevodan beast remains a mystery to this day. Maybe it was a hyena that escaped from a menagerie? Or maybe it was a wild hybrid with the predatory instinct of a wolf, but which, like a dog, was not afraid of people? Or maybe it was just a big wolf? In the end, the records mention a 79-kilogram monster, almost twice the size of the average size dogs. Some witnesses reported that the beast could "brush" bullets away - proof of local superstition that it was a werewolf or evil spirit sent by God to punish them for their sins. Such stories were more likely to be heard from incompetent hunters justifying their inability to stop the beast.
Sometimes the Zhevodan beast attacked several times during the day and in the following days often left its victim uneaten, which indicated that it did not starve. Some witnesses stated that he wore armored fur like a wild boar, which explained the bulletproof ability of this demon. One of the surviving victims even claimed that the beast walked on two legs. Or maybe it was a man who wore the skin of a wolf? Several witnesses said they saw a man with this beast.
On September 21st, 1765, François-Antoine de Boternes, a professional wolf hunter, to the delight of the locals, shot and killed a large creature near Chaze Abbey. Then in December, another beast attacked and injured two children near Besser-Sainte-Marie. Was it a coincidence that the second beast appeared so soon in such a remote corner of France? Either way, several deaths followed.
A 2009 investigation uncovered the potential criminality of Jean Chastel, who killed a second beast in June of 1,767 people. Investigators wondered how Farmer Chastel shot the beast when the best wolf hunters couldn't. They concluded that the beast was somewhat familiar with Chastel before he was shot. Or maybe this person protected him?
Video. Beast of Gevaudan
As for motives, some believe that Chastel or one of his sons was serial killer, and the Zhevodan beast was the perfect way to cover up crimes. Others claim that Chastel's son had a hyena and a huge red mastiff in his menagerie, which gave rise to the desired monstrous offspring in the form of a female wolf. Chastel was a farmer, convincing people that predatory beast attacking their women and children, he easily tracked down real wolves who were stealing sheep and goats from the farmer.
The body of the animal, shot by Chastel, was taken to Versailles. By the time the carcass reached the king, it was rotten and ordered to be destroyed.
Years later, the terror set up by the beast of Gevaudan found its reflection in old stories about predatory wolf who hunted girls near the forest. The story has also found its niche in local folklore. Jean Chastel is said to have killed the Gévaudan beast with a silver bullet made from a coin bearing the image of the Virgin Mary.