It is a timeless campfire tale, simple and hair-raising in the way all such yarns must be. One that speaks to the most primal and deeply ingrained of all human fears? But there is another story to be told here as well, and while certainly hair-raising, it is anything but simple. The events that transpired in the forests and valleys of the Himalayan foothills in the first decade of the twentieth century were not a series of bizarre aberrations.
They were in fact the inevitable result of the tremendous cultural and ecological conflicts that were shaking the region—indeed, the world—at that time, affecting man and animal alike in unlikely ways, and throwing age-old systems chaotically out of whack.
Far from some pulp fiction tale of man versus nature or good versus evil, the story of the Champawat is richer and much more complex, with protagonists at odds with even themselves. This tiger ceased to behave like a tiger at all.
Beginning, of course, with the actual tiger. Bengal tigers do not under normal circumstances kill or eat humans. They are by nature semi-nocturnal, deep-forest predators with a seemingly ingrained fear of all things bipedal; they are animals that will generally change direction at the first sign of a human rather than seek an aggressive confrontation.
Yet at the turn of the twentieth century, a change so profound and upsetting to the natural order was occurring in Nepal and India as to cause one such tiger to not only lose its inborn fear of humans altogether, but to begin hunting them in their homes on an all but weekly basis—a tragedy for the more than four hundred individuals who would eventually fall victim to its teeth and claws.
To many, even in present-day India, he is nothing short of a secular saint, a brave and selfless figure who risked life and limb to defend poor villagers when no one else would. To others, particularly academics engaged with post-colonial ecologies, he is just another perpetrator of the Eurocentric paternalism that defined the colonial experience.
Each is a fair judgment. The whole truth, however, is far more nuanced, as one would expect when it comes to a deeply conflicted man whose life spanned eras, generations, and eventually even empires. Jim Corbett was a prolific sportsman who, upon achieving fame, hobnobbed with aristocrats and used tiger hunts to curry their favor. But he was also a tireless advocate for wild tigers and devoted the latter part of his life to their conservation—as evidenced by the sprawling and magnificent national park in India that bears his name to this day.
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information. FALSE if the statement contradicts the information. Choose the correct answer, A. Write your answers in boxes on your answer sheet. Why do tigers rarely attack people in cars? A They have learned that cars are not dangerous. B They realise that people in cars cannot be harmed. C They do not think people in cars are living creatures. D They do not want to put their cubs at risk. Answer: C. The writer says that tigers rarely attack a man who is standing up because.
A they are afraid of the man s height. B they are confused by the man's shape. C they are puzzled by the man s lack of movement. D they are unable to look at the man directly.
Answer: B. A human is more vulnerable to tiger attack when squatting because. A he may be unaware of the tiger's approach. B he cannot easily move his head to see behind him. C his head becomes a better target for the tiger. D his back appears longer in relation to his height. Answer: D. Please descibe the mistake as details as possible along with your expected correction, leave your email so we can contact with you when needed.
Please enter description. Please enter a valid email. Home Practice Tests Why are so few tigers man-eaters? View Solution.
Solution for: Why are so few tigers man-eaters? Answer Table 1. TRUE 2. FALSE 4. Follow us on Facebook Mini ielts. Why are so few tigers man-eaters? Communities turn against conservation efforts and violent mobs form, sometimes incited by timber poachers or other wildlife criminals who hope to weaken the forest department. In , for example, Shivamallappa Basappa, a farmer in south-western India, was killed and partially eaten by a tiger while grazing his cows on the edge of Bandipur Tiger Reserve Karnataka State.
He was the third tiger victim in the span of just two weeks, and many people had reached their breaking point. A mob of some men quickly formed. It was the accumulated anger of many years. Perhaps no case better epitomises the problems surrounding man-eaters than the story of T-1, a headline-making tigress shot in November after a two-year killing spree.
An image of T-1, also called Avni, is held up by protestors seeking to save her from being killed Credit: Getty Images. In , T-1 began turning up on camera traps in Pandarkhawa in Maharashtra State, a gently undulating landscape of pastures, agricultural fields and forest patches in central India. She preyed on livestock, and soon made her first human kill, a year-old woman found dead in her field with deep slashes in her back. Three months later, T-1 killed a man — and then another the very next day.
They should provide animals with more safety and with more dignity. Even if authorities do manage to capture a man-eating tiger alive, they then face the question of what to do with it.
Relocating it to a different forest only moves the problem. Three weeks later, following a streak of livestock attacks, the tiger killed a pregnant woman. Dhanwatey, co-founder of the Tiger Research and Conservation Trust, a non-profit organisation in Maharashtra.
Some biologists argue that putting a grown tiger like T-1 in captivity is no solution Credit: Getty Images. T-1, however, seemed especially savvy at avoiding capture. She ignored baited traps and evaded search parties deployed into the forest to catch her. Violence would have likely escalated from there were it not for the efforts of Abharna Maheshwaram, a deputy conservator of forests in the Maharashtra Forest Department.
She had a hunch that female officers would be better at keeping the peace than male ones, so she sent 18 of her female colleagues to affected villages wearing civilian clothes. They only revealed their identity as forest guards after earning the trust of the local women.
In February — with nine victims now attributed to the man-eating tiger — the Bombay High Court stayed an order to shoot T Efforts to capture her, including through use of thermal drones, hunting dogs and a paraglider, became increasingly desperate.
T-1, meanwhile, became a mother, and her two cubs began joining her on human hunts. In August, T-1 claimed three human lives in the span of just 24 days. T-1, who killed at least 13 people and was killed in November , is brought into a post-mortem room at the Gorewada Rescue Centre Credit: Getty Images. Asghar — allegedly in self-defence, but sitting within his vehicle — fired on T-1 with a rifle.
She died almost instantly. In Maharashtra, villagers celebrated with firecrackers; in cities, protestors held candlelight vigils. She tagged her posts with the widely trending JusticeForAvni Gandhi declined an interview request for this story.
Advocates soon began accusing the Khans of tampering with evidence and questioned whether T-1 had in fact charged the car — an aberrant behavior for a tiger, which usually reacts to a dart as it would something as minor a bee sting. The tranquilising dart recovered from her thigh also appeared to have been put in place after she was killed. Ultimately, no-one was punished. The entire fiasco and many of the lives it cost could have been avoided, he says, if the government had simply given the order to shoot to begin with.
India also needs to ensure families are quickly compensated for their losses. A higher-up official soon countered that since her husband had been trespassing in the forest when he was killed, she would not be receiving any compensatory funds after all.
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