A MAN-EATING LEOPARD

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 51, 28 August 1926, Page 20

A MAN-EATING LEOPARD

CAPTURED AFTER TEN WEEKS'

HUNTING.

Ono of the most remarkable stories: in tho. history, of Indian, "shikar" (big game huntingf is told by a Naini Tal correspondent in the "Pioneer." The writer describes the killing of a leopard, which in ' i last seven years has killed 125 human beings, by Captain J. Corbett, of Gurnoy House, Naini Tal, with the co-operation of Mr. A. W. Ibbotson, Deputy Commissionor of Garhwal. It roamed in an area of some 350 square miles of Western Garhwal, which included the junction of the pilgrim routes to the holy shrines of Kidarnath ana Badrinath. Tin leopard did not often seize pilgrims, who travel in bands of considerable size and are protected in their shelters at night by strong lights. Its victims wero generally snatched from inside houses or their entrances. Tho fear this aroused led the ipeople to close up and barricade thoir- small homes even in the stifling hot weather. Year after year all of-. fc'V'3 to kill the leopard .failed. Sixteen Indian' shikaris paid by the Govorninont did not succeed; twice the loopard was caught, once in a trap and once in a cave, only to escape. Gun traps, gin traps, tho most careful tracking, sitting up over human kills, pois-oning-the kills with strychnine, arsenic, and cyanide wore of no avail. ' The country folk long' ago decided that the man-eater had supernatural powers. Towards- the end of April, Captain Cor!bett sat up for ten nights on a ma|chan, near a grass sholter where the 'leopard had killed threo victims, without seeing anything of the beast. Below was a goat secured with a bell round its neck. Ou the eleventh night at 10 o 'clock Captain Corbett heard something rush down the road, and by ; means of his electric torch was able to ■s«.e a leopard springing. Ho fired without apparent result, and had to spend an anxious night aloft until daylight came. He then found blood tracks ; leading to the. leopard, which lay dead in a hole in which it had fallen 50 yards down a ravine. The identification of tho animal as the famous man-eater is unquestionable. It was very old and its length was 7ft lOin.■ Captain Corbett had spent ten weeks in the hunt.