In 1925 a Bengal tigress was shot by an unknown poacher. The bullet struck her right at her jaw, damaging most of her teeth including her canines, and also damaging her claws. Unable to hunt her normal prey like deer, she first targeted an isolated, unaware villager. Noticing how easily it was to catch and kill a human, she became a fierce hunter, to the point the taste of a man’s blood was the only thing on her mind. Around this time period, the tigress had given birth to a litter, but giving her health only one male cub survived. As the cub grew older, the tigress taught him only how to hunt humans instead of deer and other small animals, which is highly uncommon for tigers.
Throughout 1926-1929 the tigress and her cub continued to hunt villages and unaware poachers surrounding their territory (1,500 square miles located in the Kumaon hills) consistently moving and changing locations to confuse hunters and villagers. Come year 1929, the pair officially killed 64 villagers, although there are claims to be over 100+ cases involving the tigress and her cub. Villages were abandoned, crops left to rot, and villagers refused to leave their homes in fear of being caught unaware by the blood hungry bengal tigers.
In the beginning of 1929 Jim Corbett was begged by british authorities to intervene and put an end the chaos, which he then made an agreement that there be no rewards from the government, and that all other hunters be removed from the area. In April, 1929 Corbett tracked the pair to a ravine near the village of Dalkania, he then spotted what he believed to be the fully grown tigress hiding in a bush near the village. He then fired a shot which instantly eliminated the tiger. However, as he approached the carcass, he realized the tiger he had killed was not the mother, but her cub who had grown full size due to the mass amount of villagers they had hunted. Luckily, the mother tigress slipped away into the jungle, surely watching Corbett stand over her male cub from afar.
For the rest of the year 1929, the tigress grew even more enraged and fierce towards humans, hunting not only to eat, but in hope she could bring justice to her beloved cub. She began hunting closer to the village boundaries, losing her stealth, and becoming more unpredictable.
in early April, 1930 Jim Corbett returned to the Kumaon hills after hearing reports surface that the known tigress was stalking the Kala Agar forests. In April 11, 1930 Corbett was walking along a narrow jungle path, carrying 3 nightjar eggs. As he turned a corner on the path, he stared dead in the eye of the Tigress he had been hunting for half a decade. Just 8 feet away, Corbett slowly reached for his .275 Rigby rifle, he pulled the trigger releasing a fatal shot to the tigress’ chest, killing her instantly.
Later on the autopsy confirmed that this in fact was the same tigress who was causing damage to villages in the Kumaon hills areas with her cub. The way the tigress’s mouth was decaying and infected with broken teeth validated every sign that she was the tigress they had been hunting all along.
This fact alone later on changed Corbetts opinion on tigers hunting humans. He claimed that a tiger wouldn’t hunt a human unless it absolutely needs to. The bullet that struck the Bengal tigress is what caused her to be weak and gravitate towards hunting humans. Corbett fully believed that humans were the cause of all the conflict that the tigress and her male cub created.
Hunting tigers wouldn’t be deemed illegal until the late 1960s. Before this time, the population of bengal tigers dropped drastically going from an estimated 40,000 to an endangered amount being under 2,000 total. In 1972 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the Indian government pass the landmark Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, banning any and all tiger hunting.
They announced project tiger in 1973 which was launched inside India’s very first national park. This park was later renamed Jim Corbett National Park to honor the hunter-turned-conservationist.
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