The tiger has been one of the
Big Five game animals of
Asia.
Tiger hunting took place on a large scale in the early nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, being a recognised and admired sport by the
British in
colonial India as well as the
maharajas
and aristocratic class of the erstwhile princely states of
pre-independence India. A single maharaja or English hunter could claim
to kill over a hundred tigers in their hunting career.
[35] Tiger hunting was done by some hunters on foot; others sat up on
machans with a goat or buffalo tied out as bait; yet others on elephant-back.
[142]
In some cases, villagers beating drums were organised to drive the
animals into the killing zone. Elaborate instructions were available for
the skinning of tigers and there were taxidermists who specialised in
the preparation of tiger skins.
Tiger hunting on
elephant-back, India, 1808.
Man-eating tigers
Main article:
Tiger attack
Normally wild tigers, especially if they have no prior contact with
humans, will actively avoid interactions with humans. However, according
to some sources, tigers are thought to be responsible for more human
deaths through direct attack than any other wild mammal.
[35]
Attacks are occasionally provoked, as tigers will lash out after being
injured while they themselves are hunted. Occasionally, attacks are
provoked accidentally, as when a human surprises a tiger or
inadvertently comes between a mother and her young.
[143]
Occasionally human behavior will inadvertently provoke tiger attacks by
triggering their natural instincts. In one case, a postman who
delivered mail on foot in a rural region of India where interactions
with tigers are commonplace, was not bothered by them for several years
despite many interactions. Soon after the postman started to use a
bicycle, the man was attacked by a tiger, theorically having been
instinctively provoked by the chase.
[144]
Although humans are not regular prey for tigers, occasionally tigers
will come to view people as prey. Such attacks tend to be particularly
prevalent in areas where population growth, logging, and farming have
put pressure on tiger habitats and reduced wild prey for them. Most
man-eating tigers are old and missing teeth, acquiring a taste for
humans because of their inability to capture their preferred prey.
[145] This was the case in the
Champawat Tiger, a tigress found in
Nepal and then
India,
that was found to have had two broken canines. She was responsible for
an estimated 430 human deaths, the most attacks known to be perpetrated
by a single wild animal per the Guinness Book, by the time she was shot
in 1907 by
Jim Corbett.
[21]
Unlike man-eating leopards, even established man-eating tigers will
seldom enter human settlements, usually remaining at village outskirts.
[146] Nevertheless, attacks in human villages do occur.
[147]
Tigers treat humans as they do other potential prey, engaging in a
length stalking phase before pouncing from close range. Since they are
nocturnal, many attacks occur at night while people are usually
sleeping. Attacks are also common when people are working outdoors and
are physically engaged in distracting tasks. Thanks to their natural
predatory instincts, such as their use of stealth and surprise and their
tendency to attack partially isolated people, early writings tend to
profile man-eating tigers and other similarly-disposed big cats as
"cowardly".
[148] Due to the size and power of the tiger, few humans survive when a predatory attack is carried out.
Reportedly, in the
Singapore area (where tigers are now
extirpated)
in the 1840s, an estimated 1,000 fatalities occurred from tiger
attacks. Man-eaters have been a particular problem in recent decades in
India and Bangladesh, especially in
Kumaon,
Garhwal and the
Sundarbans mangrove swamps of
Bengal, where some healthy tigers have been known to hunt humans. Because of rapid habitat loss due to
climate change, tiger attacks have increased in the Sundarbans.
[149]
The Sundarbans area reportedly had 129 human deaths from tigers from
1969 to 1971. In the 10 years prior to that period, according to
Chakrabarti (1984), humans were predated at an estimated rate of 100 per
year in the Sudarban region, with a possible high of around 430 in some
years of the 1960s.
[35] Unusually, in some years in the Sundarbans, more humans are killed by tigers than vica versa.
[35] In the year of 1972, India's production of
honey and beeswax dropped by 50% when at least 29 people who gathered these materials were devoured.
[35]
Almost all tigers that are identified as man-eaters are quickly
captured, shot, or poisoned. Current Indian wildlife protection laws
state that animals must be saved unless the tiger is a repeat offender
and no hope exists for rehabilitation. However, man-eating attacks may
still lead to revenge killing of several tigers, including those not
involved in the attack. On occasion, man-eating tigers are relocated to
large nature preserves, with mixed success. In 1986 in the Sundarbans,
since tiger almost always attack from the rear, the idea was implemented
that masks with human faces on them be worn to the back of the head, on
the theory that tigers will usually not carry through attacks if seen
by their prey. This temporarily decreased the number of attack, though
the tigers appeared to become habituated to the masks and attacks again
increased in the following years.
[150]
Tigers kept in captivity retain wild instinct and, especially those
in privately-owned collections where improper handling is more common,
may attack humans. An estimated 1.75 fatal attacks occur per year in
captivity, with at least 27 people killed or seriously injured in the
United States by tigers from 1998 to 2001.
[151]
In large, well-kept public zoos, tiger attacks on humans are very rare
and tigers who associate with their zookeepers from birth may be docile
and even affectionate towards their handlers once fully grown. However,
most zoos are rightfully cautious and, when the tigers must be handled
closely (such as medical procedures), it is a necessity to assure that
tigers are fully unconsicous from anesthesia.
[151] Tatiana,
a female tiger, escaped from her enclosure in the San Francisco Zoo,
killing one person and seriously injuring two more before being shot and
killed by the police. The enclosure had walls that were lower than they
were legally required to be, allowing the tiger to climb the wall and
escape.
Threat Level Critically Endangered
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