MAN-EATING LEOPARD.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5007, 30 July 1926, Page 4

MAN-EATING LEOPARD.

TRACKED AND KILLED.

125 HUMAN VICTIMS'.

One of the most remarkable stories in the history of Indian shikar (big game hunting) is told by a Naini Tai correspondent in the Pioneer. The writer describes the killing of a leopard whivh in the past seven years has killed 125 human beings by Captain J. Corbett, of Gunney House, Naini Tai, with the co-operation of Mr A. W. Ibbotson, Deputy Commis,sioner of Garhwa,!. 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 and Bad'rinath.

The leopard did not ofte,n seize pilgrims, who travel in bands of considerable size and are, protected in their shelters by strong lights. Its, victims were generally snatched from inside, houses or their entrancer The fear this aroused led the people to close up 'a,nd barricade their small homes even hi the stifling hot weather. Year afte.r year all efforts to kill the leopard ‘failed. Sixteen Indian shikaris paid by the Government did not succeed; twice the leopard was caught, once in a trap and once in a cave, only to escape. Gun traps, gin traps, the most careful .tracking, sitting up over human kills, poisoning the kills with strychnine arsenic, and cyanide were of no Avail. The country folk long ago decided that the man-eater had super-natural powers. Towards the end of April Captain Corbett sat up for ten nights on a macha.n, near a grass shelter where the leopard had killed three victims, without seeing anything of the beast

Below was a goat secured with a bell round its neck. On the eleventh night at 10 o’clock Captain Corbett heard something rush down the road, and by means of his electric toi’ch was able to see a leopaj-d springing. He. fired without apparent result, and had to spend an anxious night aloft until daylight came. He then found bloodtracks leading to the leopard, which lay dead in a hole into which it had fallen 50 ya,rds down a ravine. The identification of the 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.