Man Eater Tiger

During the late XIX century, a Nepalese region close to the Himalayas was terrorized by the most notorious and prolific man-eater of all times. Men, women and children were ambushed in the jungle by the dozens. The attacks were so frequent and so bloody that people started talking about demons, and even punishment from the gods. The responsible was a Bengal tigress who had been shot by a hunter. She had escaped, but the bullet had broken two of her fangs. In constant pain, and rendered unable to hunt her usual prey, the tigress had became adam khor, a man eater.

Soon, the victim count of the tigress reached 200. Hunters were sent to kill the beast, but she was too cunning and was seldom even seen by them. Eventually, the Nepalese government decided that the problema was big enough to send the National Army after the killer cat. Other than the case of the Gevauden beast (see #5), this was probably the only time in History when the army was deemed necessary to deal with a man eater. But they failed to capture the tigress. She was, however, forced to abandon her territory and she crossed the border to India, to the Champawat region where she continued her depredations. It is said that with every human she killed, she became bolder and more fearless, and eventually, she started attacking in broad daylight and prowling around villages. Men wouldn’t even dare leave their huts to work, for they could hear the roaring of the killer tigress in the forest, waiting for them. But most man eaters share the same fate, and eventually, one man decided to put the reign of the tigress to an end. This man was Jim Corbett, who would (ironically) become one of the first great advocates of tiger conservation.

Corbett would later tell of how he only found the tigress by following the macabre trail of blood and limbs from her latest victim; a teenaged girl. Corbett was a brave man, but even he was horrified at the gruesome sight.
Corbett shot the tigress in 1911. The local people were so relieved and grateful that they actually made Corbett a sadhu, a holy man. By that time, the tigress had killed 436 humans, and these were only the recorded victims, with probably many more who were never reported. She is still the most prolific individual man eater in History. Not only that; she killed more people than even the worst human serial killers (leaving genocide aside). Only one serial killer is said to rival the Champawat tigress; an infamous Hungarian countess named Erzebet Bathory… who was, funnily enough, known as the “Tigress of Csejte”.