Man-Eating Tigers

Corbett was a hunter and fishing enthusiast in early life but took to big game photography later. As his admiration for tigers and leopards grew, he resolved never to shoot them unless they turned man-eater or posed a threat to cattle. Between 1907 and 1938, Corbett tracked and killed at least a dozen man-eaters. It is estimated that the combined total of men, women and children these twelve animals had killed was in excess of 1,500. His very first success, the Champawat Tiger in Champawat, alone was responsible for 436 documented deaths. Recent analysis of carcasses, skulls and preserved remains show that most of the man-eaters were suffering from disease or wounds like porcupine quills embedded deep in the skin or old gunshot wounds which never healed. For some, such as the Leopard of Rudraprayag, the skull and dentition showed advanced, debilitating gum and tooth decay, such as would limit the animal in killing wild game, and drive it towards man-eating.He also shot the Panar Leopard, which allegedly killed 400 after being injured by a poacher and thus being rendered unable to hunt its normal prey. Other notable man-eaters he killed were the Talla-Des man-eater, the Mohan man-eater, the Thak man-eater and the Chowgarh tigress. However, one of the most famous was the man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, which terrorised the pilgrims to the holy Hindu shrines Kedarnath and Badrinath for more than ten years. The leopard was suffering from tooth decay, which made it much harder to kill its normal prey, and it instead turned to killing humans, who were much easier to kill. The Thak man-eating tigress, when skinned by Corbett, revealed two old gunshot wounds; one in her shoulder had become septic and Corbett suggests, could have been the reason for the tigress to have turned man-eater.At times, he took great personal risks to save the lives of others. Still remembered in India as a great preservationist, his memories command fond respect in the areas he worked in.By his own account, Corbett shot the wrong animal at least once, and greatly regretted the incident. In addition, man-eaters are quite capable of stalking the hunter. As a result, Corbett preferred to hunt alone and on foot when pursuing dangerous game. He often hunted with a small dog named Robin, about whom he wrote much in his first book, The Maneaters of Kumaon.Corbett shot a documented 19 tigers and 14 leopards -- a total of 33 recorded and documented kills.