ROD AND GUN Tigers Do Not Turn To Human Flesh Voluntarily

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31349, 20 April 1967, Page 9

ROD AND GUN Tigers Do Not Turn To Human Flesh Voluntarily

(Specially written /or "The Press" by JAMES SIERS.) The escape of the two tigers from Wellington Zoo brought to my mind many of the stories of man-eaters which even now periodically reduce the population in parts of India and South-east Asia. The most famous of the books written about the tiger was the “Man-Eaters of Kumaon,” by Jim Corbett, and when reading it for the first time on a warm summers night, I recall a distinct chill which caused me to close the window, after an unusually long stare into the darkness. Lions, crocodiles, leopards and occasionally wolves and bears have killed man, but the tiger seems by far the most consistent man-eater.

Early Europeans knew fear of the pre-historic tiger, a saber-toothed animal which sported great canine teeth two-and-a-half inches long. Those early pre-historic animals, according to bone structure appear to have been smaller than today's tiger. Measurements recorded mainly in India, show that a large tiger will measure about 7ft, excluding the length of tail. WHh the tail, it will measure about 9ft, and weigh over 3001 b.

Walter Elliot who shot 80 tigers in India over a 100 years ago and left a written record, showed his heaviest tiger to have weighed 3801 b and the heaviest tigress 2401 b. Size Varies The size of tigers varies according to the location, supply of food and the suitability of climate. JBut regardless, of the ideal there are few authentic accounts which show a tiger as measuring more than 10 feet in length and weighing over 400 lb. ,

This is rather like the stories one hears about wild boar in New Zealand. I have met a lot of pig-hunters who claim to have killed boar of more than 400 lb. The two zoo-bred animals were therefore small in com-

parison to the tigers found in the wild.

Today the tiger is regarded as a typically Indian animal, although .it inhabits a great part of Asia. It is supposed to have moved into India from north Asia, coming by way of the eastern Himalayas through Nepal and Bhutan. Its original home was probably in the far north towards the Arctie, where bones of tigers, apparently identical with those of the existing species, have been found in pleistocene formations. These remains date, no doubt, from a period before the ice-cap reached as far south as it does today and that area enjoyed a temperate climate. High-Country Hunter

The tiger is still found in the forests and reed beds of Eastern Siberia, in Korea, Mongolia and Northern China; Southern China and the area formerly -French IndoChina, Thailand, the Malay Peninsula, Burma and Indonesia.

They have been found high 1 in the Himalayas and a man--1 eating tigress killed near ■ Chakarta in 1889 hunted a ’ ridge 10,000 feet above sea- ’ level. In historic times there have ' been no wild tigers in Europe, but they are still to be found ; as far west as the southern ■ shores of the Caspian Sea and in Turkish Georgia. Yet it is in India that the tiger seems to turn to man- . eating most. Whether this is because of a large, unarmed - population, or because tigers . prefer Indians it is hard to : say. But only two months ago - I read of a report of a manI eater which was causing conI slderable distress. Jim Corbett’s stories of the i man-eaters he stalked and , killed in the Himalayan footi hills show the extent to which i a man-eater can paralyse an ' entire area. The man-eater known as the Chowgarh tiger i killed 64 persons between - 1926 and 1930. These were

witnessed and authenticated cases. How many others may have been killed and not reported, will never be known. Ranging over an area of about 1000 square miles this tiger terrorised a number of small villages to the point where people were too terrified to leave their homes even in day time. Not that tigers turn voluntarily to man-eating. Usually it is through disability, either accidental or caused by human agency, which prevents it from bringing down natural game, that the tiger turns to human flesh. Humans Preferred

But regardless of the reason, once any of the large carnivora turn to man-eating, they prefer humans above all else. A tiger will go past cattle to get at the herdsman, a leopard, which usually prefers dogs to all other food, will step past a dog and even wolves, once they have acquired the habit will concentrate on humans.

The greatest number of hairraising stories are reported from India at the turn of the 19th century. In Cawanpore, a pack of wolves killed more than 100 persons, and even attacked sentries on guard duty. The town of Bhiwapur was completely deserted when a pair of tigers had killed more than 400 persons in what is said to have been a “very short time.”

It was reported in "The Times,” London, in 1872, that in the three previous years, mortality in India from wild beasts had numbered 12,554 human beings, plus an additional number of 25,000 who died from snake-bite. One of the most interesting facts I learned was that tigers at one time were most destructive in Singapore. Dr. Oxley remarked in a paper in 1843: "Tigers are unfortunately most numerous (in Singapore): the loss of human life from the depredations of these animals amounts to fully 200 persons per annum for the

last three years. This is a frightful and almost incredible amount; but I have too much reason to believe that it is less than the real loss. A gentleman with whom I am acquainted took, some pains to discover the truth and found that nearly 300 human beings had been carried off in one year, of whom only seven had been reported to the police." In those days the mortality of the Chinese coolies was said to average two a day or 600 to 800 in a year. A French-Canadian, named Crable, who settled in Singapore in the 1840’s, appears to have provided a suitable remedy. He made a comfortable living by shooting the tigers and selling the flesh to the Chinese. They ate it to acquire courage.