The making of a "maneater". The Pithoragarh maneater

[prashantsingh]

Sad. Very sad.
So Lakhpat lives up to his trigger happy reputation.
He must be close to his half century now.

[essdee1972]

Prashantji, we are sure lucky to have such a wonderful hunter, and more importantly, raconteur, in our group!

Hard luck missing this one. From your writing, I believe if you had more time, you wouldn't have needed to shoot more than one leopard to get rid of the maneater.

Even Corbett had to leave hunting the Rudraprayag beast halfway for work!

Some thoughts.....

Suspicions about presence of more man-eaters were underlined as a leopard took a young calf in the same area on Sunday.

I know the ancient Vedic-era laws equated killing a cow with killing a human, but isn't this taking things too far? Does someone expect the leopards to undertake a fast unto death ( a real one, not the usual political gimmick) just because human activity have decimated the natural prey base? They will kill calfs, monkeys, dogs.......

Well, they have killed another big old tom in the area and now claiming it to be a man eater.This trend of keep killing any leopard showing up on bait irrespective of sex, size until man eating stops is kind of disturbing.

When you read about Corbett's pain in shooting a wrong animal, you realise why his "record" is being broken, that too in an era where the concentration of big cats is probably less than 5% of what it was in his time. Moreover, in the situation where big cats find themselves, maneating isn't really going to "stop". You get one, another cat faces the same problems and turns to maneating, and the cycle goes on.

And now we celebrate unbridled population growth by saying that "India has the largest base of young people in the world"!!! (no political offense intended).

[Biren]

These leopards in native language are called kukur baag.... meaning leopards which preys on Dogs. Its also common to sight these leopards. Rare will one hear these kukkur baags preying on bigger animals like adult cows or buffaloes. With indiscriminate killing using old unscientific methods are pushing these cats at the verge of extinction.

Country needs to have effective forest management policy if we donnt want to deprive future generations. Instead of so called hunters going after rogue animals there should be trained personnel following scientific methods to decide and take action which should include how such things can be avoided in future. The didihaat forest range discussed here has abundant flora & fona. With killing of leopard using unscientific method we lost a great deal as to the reasons for its attacks on humans. Just ahead of didihat more lives are lost due to bear attacks... & not much is made out there except ppl take precautions such as moving in groups avoiding places frequented by bears etc. Here media makes monster of leopard.

Only if modern scientific procedure is followed, unless studies specific to regions are carried out to find out the reason as to why frequency of leopard attacks increased, these beautiful cats will be killed. Its unforgettable experience watch these in wild.

Biren

[prashantsingh]

The media plays a very important role.I will give you examples.
last year when we shot the maneater near Dehradun. There were reports that the maneater of Birori had been killed but the maneater of Chandmari was still around. I went and met the reporter and told him that the maneater of chandmari happened to be the same animal and his report had helped in only increasing the tension amongst the residents. Our man never bothered to report the truth.
ultimately I had to take help from a senior IFS officer and conduct an educational programme for the locals.
This year there was a report in the Times of India which mentioned that the shikaris were going back due to non payment of dues. The report had mentioned my name as well. I wrote a very strong letter to the editor against the report. The letter was never published.
The forest dept. Also needs to pull up its socks. In two years that this maneater has been operating. Not one pug mark has been traced or a single plaster model made to identify the animal from the sites were the human kills have taken place.
I was joking with an official and telling him that I hope some of the murders in the area have not been blamed on the maneater.
A day after the maneater was shot in Pithoragarh another leopard was sighted closeby. While a calf was killed by yet another leopard. This was reported extensively in the media. Probably the shikaris succumbed to the media pressure and shot this old male

[brihacharan]

A day after the man-eater was shot in Pithoragarh another leopard was sighted close by. While a calf was killed by yet another leopard. This was reported extensively in the media. Probably the shikaris succumbed to the media pressure and shot this old male

Hi Prashant,
> It was truly a miss between the cup & the lip....
> Your commitment, enthusiasm & drive and of-course the way you take us through the process of accomplishing the task ahead of you is very inspiring & worthy of appreciation....
> May your future endeavors be both satisfying & successful
Cheers
Briha