The Champawat Tiger: Legendary Tale of a Ferocious Man-Eater
The legendary big cat infamous for slaying over 400 human beings was finally hunted down by Jim Corbett, the legendary hunter.
An iconic horror, measuring about eight feet long from head to tail and weighing over 300 pounds, was once the cause of people not leaving their doorsteps for five days. This was just one example of the terror the Champawat tiger had unleashed that finds mention in Dane Huckelbridge’s book “No beast so fierce”.
The Champawat tiger is infamous for killing 436 men, women and children between 1900 and 1907. The trail of the final kill helped Jim Corbett hunt it down. That many kills secured it a place in the Guinness Book of World Records – it set the record of the highest number of fatalities from a tiger. However, this beast of terror was not born with a love for human flesh.
Author Dane Huckelbridge set out on the journey to explore what made the Champawat tiger a “man-eater” in his book. This is worth finding out since this solitary animal prefers to avoid human contact. He also sheds light on the legendary tale of Jim Corbett becoming the celebrated hunter of the Champawat tiger.
There are many theories on what turns a tiger into a man-eater. Even Corbett considered “stress of circumstances” causing a shift in the prey preference of the Champawat tiger. According to Corbett, among the reasons for a tiger becoming a man-eaters are old age and wounds. Other causes include the loss of prey species and competition for food.
Later, the executioner of 436 lives was discovered to have broken canines. This made the tiger incapable of hunting its usual prey like deer, goats, or cows. The incident that led to the loss of its two canines must have occurred at a young age during an encounter with a hunter. Canines are indispensible for carnivores. Tigers possess the largest canines of all cats, growing up to 3.5 inches long. These canines are used to hold and dispatch a prey with ease.
Thus, the loss of canines made the Champawat tiger incapable of hunting its natural prey, especially large animals like the water Buffalo that need to be killed swiftly to prevent injury to the tiger itself. In comparison, though not the preferred prey, human beings are much easier to kill for a tiger. However, the unfortunate hunting encounter in its youth still doesn’t adequately explain such a large death toll, quite unusual for a single tiger.
Loss of natural habitat, both in India and Nepal, may be one of the contributing factors. In the quest to make India more “civilized”, the British rulers cleared forests for agriculture and settlement. The loss of habitat, coupled with the proximity of human settlements, may have led to the Champawat tiger selecting humans as easy meal. That is why Dane Huckelbridge calls the murderous activities of the tiger “man-made”.
Tigers are semi-nocturnal, and set up their domain in deep forest. Tigers experts are of the opinion that tigers have an ingrained fear of biped animals, and would, under normal circumstances, avoid humans altogether rather than confront them. However, competition for food and loss of habitat force them to come out of their natural domain. This was what probably happened in the case of the Champawat man-eater. Not only did it lose its deep-rooted fear of human beings but began hunting them actively, an unfortunate combination of circumstances for the more than 400 souls who fell prey to its teeth and claws.
Champawat tiger’s reign of terror finally came to an end in 1907, at the hands of Corbett. Corbett gives a riveting account of how the tiger was shot and killed in his famous book Man-Eaters of Kumaon.
Editorial Support: Phoenix Content India
