Horror stories about cannibals, which are usually used to frighten children or adult cinematic masterpieces from Hollywood, are most often the fruit of natural human fear, rich imagination, or an attempt to “play on the nerves” of a particularly impressionable audience. But some of them are really based on real facts, in particular, like this story about the legendary killer lions in
"Crown of Creation" vs. "King of Beasts"
In 1898, England began building a bridge across the Tsavo River as part of the rail link between Kenya and Uganda. Thousands of Indian workers were brought in for this purpose, as well as local Africans. The project was led by Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson: at the age of 32 he was already an experienced tiger hunter and had just arrived from service in India. The construction of the bridge began in March, and almost immediately the number of workers began to dwindle.
The reason for the disappearance of people was ... two adult lions! Predators approached the camp of workers and literally pulled them out of the tents, eating them alive. Despite the attempts of people to protect themselves with the help of fires and the erection of fences from thorny bushes, the number of victims of man-eating lions grew catastrophically.
During the 9 months of construction work on the Tsavo River, according to Patterson, about 135 people disappeared, while the Uganda Railway Company claimed only 28 missing. Predators that terrified people got nicknames Ghost and Darkness, for the locals they were the personification of the spirit that impedes the activities of whites in foreign territory. But what is the true clue to such a terrible and unnatural behavior of the Kenyan man-eating lions?
Killing is the only way to survive
Perhaps this story would have forever remained a legend, shrouded in rumors and mystical conjectures, if Patterson had not been able to shoot dangerous predators. Frightened to death, workers fled the bridge site by the hundreds, so the project was halted. It took Lieutenant Colonel Patterson more than one week to lure the lions into a trap: the first was killed by him on December 9, 1898, and the next only on December 29 (according to Patterson, he had to fire at least 10 bullets into him).
The killed animals impressed no less than the bloodthirstiness during life: the body length of each was almost 3 meters from the muzzle to the tip of the tail! It took the strength of 8 adult men to transport the carcass. It was also surprising that the lions were devoid of a mane, which is completely uncharacteristic for males. Animal skins have long served as a carpet in Patterson's house. In 1907, his book "Cannibals from Tsavo" was published. In 1924, Patterson sold the trophies to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
Only in 2009 did scientists manage to reliably find out how many victims the "Kenyan cannibals". Using the method of isotope analysis of the bones and hair of lions, they found that the predators did eat human meat, but, however, not throughout their lives, but only a few months before death. The victims of one lion were approximately 24 people, the second - only 11. And most importantly, what became clear as a result of the study: it was not a mysterious magical force that pushed the animals to this, but quite understandable biological reasons.
Killer lions hunted people not because of their strength and bloodthirstiness, but on the contrary - from weakness and hopelessness. The drought that reigned in the savannah for several years deprived predators of their natural food - herbivorous mammals, including. In addition, a pair of man-eating lions were found to have jaw disorders and dental disease, injuries that prevented them from hunting stronger prey.
There is also a version that the cannibalism of Tsavo lions is genetically transmitted from generation to generation, because caravans of driven slaves passed in this region of Africa for a long time, whose bodies could well become habitual food for lion prides. In Kenya and Tanzania, to this day, cases of lion attacks on local residents are recorded.
The story of the Kenyan man-eating lions formed the basis of several films, the most popular of which is "Ghost and Darkness" 1996 starring Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas.
Going to Kenya, you should not be afraid or turn to astrologers. An organized trip accompanied by experienced raging guides makes scary situations almost impossible. However, every tourist should definitely be careful and clearly follow the rules of conduct on safaris, walks and camps.
Ghost and Darkness - a bloodthirsty legend of Kenya updated: May 31, 2019 by: Amazing World!
MOSCOW, April 19 - RIA Novosti. The famous man-eating lions from Tsavo, who killed over 130 railway workers in Kenya in the early 20th century, killed people not for lack of food, but for pleasure or because of the ease of hunting a person, paleontologists say in an article published in the journal scientific reports.
“It seems that hunting a man was not a measure of last resort for lions, it simply made life easier for them. Our data show that these man-eating lions did not completely eat the carcasses of animals and people they caught. It seems that people simply served as a pleasant addition to their already varied diet. In turn, anthropological data indicate that in Tsavo people were eaten not only by lions, but also by leopards and other big cats,” says Larisa DeSantis from Vanderbilt University in Nashville (USA).
Dark Heart of Africa
The story begins in 1898, when the colonial authorities of Britain decided to connect their colonies in East Africa with a giant railway that stretched along the shores of the Indian Ocean. In March, its builders, Indian workers brought to Africa and their white "sahibs", faced another natural barrier - the Tsavo River, a bridge across which they built for the next nine months.
Throughout this time, the railroad workers were terrorized by a pair of local lions, whose boldness and audacity often reached the point that they literally dragged workers out of their tents and ate them alive on the edge of the camp. The first attempts to scare off the predators with fire and thorny bushes failed, and they continued to attack the expedition members.
As a result of this, the workers began to desert en masse from the camp, which forced the British to organize a hunt for the "killers from Tsavo". Man-eating lions turned out to be unexpectedly cunning and elusive prey for John Patterson, an imperial army colonel and expedition leader, and only in early December 1898 did he manage to ambush and shoot one of the two lions, and 20 days later kill the second predator.
During this time, the lions managed to end the lives of 137 workers and British soldiers, which led many naturalists of that time and modern scientists to discuss the reasons for such behavior. Lions, and especially males, at that time were considered rather cowardly predators that did not attack people and large cats in the presence of retreat routes and other sources of food.
According to DeSantis, such ideas led most researchers to assume that lions attacked workers because of hunger - in favor of this was the fact that the local population of herbivores was greatly reduced due to a plague epidemic and a series of fires. DeSantis and her colleague Bruce Patterson, the namesake of a colonel at the Chicago Field Museum of History, which houses the remains of lions, have been trying for 10 years to prove that this was not so.
Safari for the "king of beasts"
Initially, Patterson believed that lions preyed on people not because of a lack of food, but because their fangs were broken. This idea was met with a flurry of criticism from the scientific community, as Colonel Patterson himself noted that the tusk of one lion broke on the barrel of his rifle at the moment when the animal lay in wait and jumped on him. However, Patterson and DeSantis continued to study the teeth of the Tsavo killers, this time using modern paleontological methods.
The enamel of the teeth of all animals, as scientists explain, is covered with a kind of "pattern" of microscopic scratches and cracks. The shape and size of these scratches, and how they are distributed, directly depends on the type of food that their owner ate. Accordingly, if the lions were starving, then there should be traces of gnawed bones on their teeth, which the predators were forced to eat with a lack of food.
With this in mind, paleontologists have compared the scratch patterns on the enamel of the Tsavo lions to the teeth of normal zoo lions fed soft food, carrion and bone-eating hyenas, and the man-eating lion from Mfuwe in Zambia, which killed at least six natives in 1991. .
“Despite the fact that eyewitnesses often reported “crunching bones” heard on the outskirts of the camp, we did not find evidence of damage to the enamel on the teeth of the lions from Tsavo, characteristic of eating bones. Moreover, the pattern of scratches on their teeth is most similar to that , which is found on the teeth of lions in zoos who are fed beef tenderloin or pieces of horse meat," says DeSantis.
Accordingly, we can say that these lions did not suffer from hunger and did not hunt people for gastronomic reasons. Scientists suggest that the lions simply liked the fairly numerous and easy prey, the capture of which required much less effort than hunting zebras or cattle.
According to Patterson, such findings partly speak in favor of his old theory about dental problems in lions - in order to kill a person, a lion did not have to bite through his cervical arteries, which was problematic to do without fangs or with bad teeth when hunting large herbivores. animals. Similar problems with teeth and jaws, he said, had a lion from Mfuwe. Therefore, we can expect that the disputes around the cannibals from Tsave will flare up with renewed vigor.
What do you think is the most bloodthirsty species on our planet? That's right - man! We kill not only for food, but also for pleasure, to dress, to be treated, and also to ... but what kind of perversions a person can think of. We even kill each other. But fortunately, our smaller brothers help us to achieve one of the most important goals in life. The Lord instructs the animals on the path of revenge, introduces his emissary into the game to kill us one by one.Some of them are like real killers who have undergone special training. They carefully prepare, methodically hunt down, surprise attack, skillfully kill, quickly hide. Their killings are not like a simple need for food. Previously, when such attacks became serial, the killers were deified, they were made into spirits, ghosts, heroes of folklore and myths.
Lions from Tsavo
Perhaps these are the most famous cannibal lions who defended their "Fatherland". They are also known as "Ghost and Darkness". Two lions worked in tandem at the end last decade 19th century. According to official figures, they killed 35 people. According to other sources, 135 people. This is probably due to the fact that at that time blacks were not considered people.
The territory of their activity covered the banks of the Tsavo River, which flows in Kenya. In 1898, a Briton named John Henry Patterson started building a bridge over this river. In addition to the British, many blacks and workers from India were involved in the project.
When the construction of the bridge began, the workers began to be kidnapped by two "kings". They abducted them under the cover of night right from the tents. The whole camp woke up from the screams and cries of the unfortunate, who were found after a while half eaten. The lions became very bold, they did not hesitate to attack during the day, leaving the "spectators" in mute horror.
The attacks continued for several months, and frightened and demoralized workers took action against the "warriors of darkness." At first they tried to use fires to scare away cats, but without success. Then fences went into action, but they did not stop the bloodshed. All efforts were unsuccessful.
Patterson, known as an experienced shooter and hunter, undertook to resolve this issue personally. He set traps, but the lions miraculously escaped them. Patterson's next step looked like a platform on stilts. This trick was proposed by the Indians, and it is called "machaan". But while the great hunter sat for the third day in a row at his observation post, the camp was attacked again and more than once.
Rumors spread throughout the camp. Representatives of different cultures and beliefs - all spoke with one voice about the punishment of the Lord. They named the deadly duo "Ghost and Darkness". They were afraid to continue working and left the camp.
The British eschewed pseudoscientific explanations. They assumed that the two lions were injured or alone, so they teamed up to hunt. They believed that if one was killed, the other would soon die. Then a second man named Charles Remington joined the hunt.
During their wanderings across the savannah, Patterson and Remington found a stinking cave where human remains were rotting. Some organs were simply bitten, and something was not touched at all. From this they deduced that lions hunted not only for food, but also for the thrill.
While they were looking for them, they never met the lions face to face, but often heard their rapid breathing or a dull roar. In the darkness, because of the grass, they sometimes noticed the glare of cat's eyes, but they quickly disappeared. The lions came quite close to the hunters, but people understood this only after some time. At some points, according to Patterson and Remington, it seemed to them that they were being hunted for them.
The situation escalated. A couple of men realized that this was not just a hunt, but a race to the bottom. The killing of the lions was to end the bloodshed that had begun nine months earlier. After unsuccessful attempts, the first lion was killed on December 9, 1898. Twenty days later, the second was also defeated. Later, the hunter told how even 9 shots did not stop the beast. “At the last moment, he tried to attack me. I'm lucky!" Patterson recalled.
The first of the lions was 3 meters long (from the nose to the tip of the tail). It was so heavy that it took 8 people to carry it to the camp. The bridge was eventually completed in February 1899, and the remains of the animals were sold to the Chicago Museum, where they are to this day.
Gustav
This name was given to a huge Nile crocodile that lives in the Ruzizi River and on the northern shores of Lake Tanganyika in Burundi. This is the largest crocodile. 7.5 meters long and weighing over a ton.
By some estimates he is 60 years old and still growing. This crocodile survived all assassination attempts (crocodile hunting became fashionable from the 1940s to 1960s) and even civil war. Numerous scars testify to his turbulent past, one of which flaunts on his eye. According to experts, this scar is from a bullet.
In addition to his size, Gustav is known for his speed and agility. He has more than 300 people on his account. He, like a rocket, flew out of the water surface, grabbed the victim and hid in the muddy abyss. Gustav became the hero of local legends and even received the status of a "spirit". He has the handwriting of a real serial maniac. In just a few days, he killed about a dozen people, and then left the stage for a while, only to replenish his energy and hit with new forces.
They say that Gustav killed only for fun, and it was his revenge for the fallen relatives. He left the corpses at the scene of the murders intact (not eaten). The fun fact is reinforced by the fact that crocodiles can go without food for several months, and they do not need to kill so much. Gustav sneaked up to the fishermen under water, then grabbed them under water and waited until the poor fellow choked. Then he simply let go, allowing the unfortunate man to emerge. But the killer reached a whole new level when his killings turned into group killings: 5-6 people at a time. And then he went with a clear conscience into the depths of the river, leaving a blood-red trail behind him.
Naturally, the locals were afraid of him, and at the mere mention of his name, they scattered in panic fear. Some documents only confirm his extraterrestrial reputation. In one of the soldiers' reports, they say that the crocodile literally swallowed the entire line fired at him when Gustav attacked a 15-year-old girl in front of a group of soldiers.
The local celebrity is still alive according to residents. Numerous traps, famous hunters, traps with chickens, cows and even dogs did not help to capture the beast. The last activity was recorded in 2008. He must have gone deep to prepare for another blow.
Tilikum
A killer whale named Tilikum was caught off the coast of Iceland in 1983 at the age of 2 years. Now he has grown, now he is seven meters long and weighs 5400 kilograms. Tilikum currently resides at the Aquarium in Orlando, Florida. So far, he has killed 3 people in his life. Involvement in one of the incidents is questionable.
The first kill occurred in 1991 when a male was living with two females at Sealand of the Pacific in British Columbia. Then 20-year-old biology student Kelty Byrne worked part-time at an entertainment center as a trainer. During one of the shows, he jumped into the aquarium, where 2 females lived with Tilikum (as it turned out, they were pregnant). Without warning, all three pounced on the unfortunate student and drowned him right in front of the audience.
Byrne, being a professional swimmer, tried to get on land, but killer whales did not allow him to. They did not let him grab onto the life buoys, any attempts to help the unfortunate turned out to be in vain. When it seemed that the guy was about to get out to the side of the pool, the predator threw him back into the middle. When the coach drowned, his body could not be taken away for several hours.
Almost immediately after this incident, Tilikum was transferred to Orlando, where he committed another murder in July 1999. The victim was 27-year-old Daniel Dukes, who was found dead on the back of a killer whale. He was naked, and there were many abrasions, bruises and cuts on his body. Later it turned out that the guy was among the audience, and at the end of the performance he hid. At night he entered the pool. It is not clear what made the man climb there, because. an autopsy revealed no drugs or alcohol in his blood.
In February 2010, Tilikum killed an experienced animal trainer, Don Brancheau. It happened right after the show, when Don was petting her pet. In front of the gathering audience, Tilikum grabbed his mentor by the hand (some say by the scythe) and dragged him under the water. Ignoring all the attempts of Don's colleagues to distract him with food and toys, he nevertheless allowed himself to be lured to the medical enclosure, where he was easier to control.
Tilikum practically tore off his arm and head from Brancheau, there were many fractures, including fractures of the cervical vertebrae, and the spine was completely torn.
After warning sanctions, small fines and minor reconstruction, Tilikum was released again in 2011. Although his contact with animals and people is limited (he is practically non-existent), Tilikum is ready to kill.
Leopard from the Central Regions of India
At the beginning of the 20th century, the central regions of India were terrorized by a man-eating leopard. It is believed that the leopard "filled up" about 150 people, earning himself the nickname "Very cunning panther." He also distinguished himself by stability: he killed every 2-3 days.
It was difficult to predict his next strike. It seemed that the leopard moved at cosmic speed and never attacked twice in one place. Usually the next victim was more than 10 kilometers from the previous one. The increasing number of deaths and the impossibility of predicting the attack puzzled the local authorities. Some people refused to go to work, and some even refused to leave their homes.
The English hunters agreed to accept the challenge, but to say what it would become if successful. heroic deed means to say nothing. After a three-week search, the boy came to the hunters who were driving cattle, and said that his brother had just been killed by a big cat.
Then the hunters prepared an ambush at the fresh corpse. But when the leopard was caught, he could easily get out of the water dry, without giving the snipers a chance for an accurate shot. Then the desperate hunter jumped out and ran to the cat in the open, trying to scare with screams and waving his arms, but Leo just disappeared into the darkness.
Soon the hunter realized that he was now being hunted. It didn't take long for him to be content with empty feelings of being chased and snuffling empty calls in the middle of the night (no, Leo didn't call, of course). His fears were confirmed when, after spending the night in a tree in the jungle, he discovered that a deadly cat was quietly climbing up his tree. The next time he woke up in his tent, the awning of which someone was catching and trying to rip off. This time the beast was frightened by the cry of local residents.
The leopard continued to kill at an astonishing rate. Both cattle and people became its victims. It is not clear how much more the killing machine would have been atrocious if it had not been for the gas cylinder that stopped people's panic.
What made him attack people - such an unusual and unreasonable diet in terms of energy value? Scientists claim that cats switch to human flesh only when they have health problems, they are injured, or they get old. But our Leo had all his teeth and claws intact, he was young and healthy. So he didn't hunt for food. Experts have suggested a rather creepy thing: when Leo was still a kitten, he was fed human flesh.
Lone elephant from the forests of Aberdare
Throughout the 20th century, several villages in Kenya were attacked by the African elephant. For many months, the elephant destroyed villages with impunity, destroyed crops, broke dwellings and killed one person (according to rumors, there were more dead). He seemed to be specifically looking for people, but at the same time he was very cunning: he did not attack the same village twice.
Although one kill is not so much compared to previous killers, but this does not do him credit. Having torn to death one person, tearing off his arms from his body, the elephant inflicted fatal and not very injuries on many residents. If he had not been stopped, it is not known how many murders would have been on his account.
There was a hunter for the outcast under the sonorous name of J. A. Hunter. He learned about the killer elephant from the frightened villagers who interrupted their antelope hunt to tell him about the elephant raging in the vicinity. Then the lone elephant killed one of his own.
Hunter began the hunt by stalking the jungles of Aberdare. It was there that he clashed with him for the first time. The next day, the hunter tracked the elephant through broken branches and trees. But the elephant sensed the hunter first and set off on him, but Hunter shot him in the head with a large-caliber gun, and then finished him off in the neck.
An autopsy found a bullet wound in an elephant under the tusk, where the nerve center is located in elephants. As the veterinarians suggested, the pain caused the elephant to behave aggressively and break away from the pack. And people could not understand the animal.
Serpent of Nigeria
In 1999, in just 10 days, a cobra killed 16 Nigerians.
Snakes are known for being deadly, so no one provokes them on purpose. They have a very well developed defense mechanism. But this cobra specifically sought out victims, attacking from tall grass. She bit a man, then hid and after a while finished him off.
But what causes animals to break their usual diet and habits? "Ghost and Darkness", united, attacked due to the fact that they did not have a full-fledged pride. Killer whales due to pregnancy, elephants due to pain, Leo was tamed to human flesh as a child. Only it has not been clarified why Gustav and this cobra attacked (she, too, has not yet been caught).
In any case, as scientists say, large predators during illnesses, in old age, switch their mode to more accessible victims. An unarmed man is a very easy prey. From an evolutionary point of view, we are safe. We have no fangs, no claws, no poison glands. Why wouldn't an old alligator attack a human?
So if you are going to visit one of them, then at http://www.rustouroperator.ru/?cat=1 you can buy a ticket and tickle your nerves. To do this, choose tours from Moscow for 2 days and you will have time to see and do not spend a lot of money
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The Champawat tigress is a female Bengal tiger that lived in the late 19th century in Nepal and India. She is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most bloodthirsty of all man-eating tigers - in a few years she killed at least 430 people.
No one knows why the tigress began to attack people. Her attacks began suddenly - people who walked through the jungle began to disappear at once in dozens. Hunters and soldiers from the Nepalese army were sent to fight the tigress. They failed to shoot or catch the predator, but the soldiers were able to drive the tigress from Nepal to Indian territory.
And here's what happened next...
In India, the tigress continued her bloody feast. She became bolder and attacked people even during the day. The predator simply wandered around the villages until she came across another victim. Life in the region was paralyzed - people refused to leave their homes and go to work if they heard a tiger growl in the forest.
Finally, in 1907, English hunter Jim Corbett shot a tigress. He tracked her down near the Indian city of Champawat, where the tigress killed a 16-year-old girl. When Jim Corbett examined his hunting trophy, he discovered that the right upper and lower fangs of the tigress had been broken off. Apparently, this made her hunt people - ordinary prey is not available to a tiger with such a defect.
- In the city of Champawat, there is a "cement slab" that indicates the place of death of the tigress.
- You can read more about the Champawat tigress and the hunt for her in Jim Corbett's autobiographical book The Kumaon Cannibals.
And now a little about the personality of the hunter himself!
Edward James "Jim" Corbett -
famous man-eating animal hunter in India.
These animals have been responsible for the deaths of more than 1200 people. The first tiger he killed, the Champawat man-eater, was the cause of the documented death of 436 people.
Corbett held the rank of colonel in the British Indian Army and was repeatedly invited by the government of the United Provinces to exterminate man-eating tigers and leopards in the regions of Garhwal and Kumaon. For his success in saving the inhabitants of the region from cannibals, he earned the respect of the inhabitants, many of whom considered him a sadhu - a saint.
Between 1907 and 1938, Corbett is documented to have hunted down and shot 19 tigers and 14 leopards officially documented as cannibals. These animals have been responsible for the deaths of more than 1200 people. The first tiger he killed, the Champawat man-eater, was the cause of the documented death of 436 people.
Corbett also shot a Panar leopard, which, after being wounded by a poacher, could no longer hunt its usual prey and, having become a cannibal, killed about 400 people. Other cannibals destroyed by Corbett include the Talladesh Ogre, the Mohan Tigress, the Tak Ogre, and the Choguar Ogre.
The most notorious of the cannibals shot by Corbett was the Rudraprayag leopard, which terrorized pilgrims on their way to the Hindu shrines at Kedarnath and Badrinath for more than a decade. An analysis of the skull and teeth of this leopard showed the presence of gum disease and the presence of broken teeth, which did not allow him to hunt for his usual food and was the reason that the beast became a cannibal.
Jim Corbett at the body of a man-eating leopard from Rudraprayag he shot in 1925
After flaying a man-eating tigress from Tuck, Jim Corbett discovered two old gunshot wounds in her body, one of which (in the shoulder) became septic, and, according to Corbett, was the reason for the transformation of the animal into a cannibal. Analysis of the skulls, bones, and skins of man-eating animals showed that many of them suffered from diseases and wounds, such as deeply pierced and broken porcupine quills or gunshot wounds that did not heal.
In the preface to The Kumaon Cannibals, Corbett wrote:
The wound that forced the tiger to become a cannibal may be the result of an unsuccessful shot by a hunter who then did not pursue the wounded animal, or the result of a collision with a porcupine.
Because in the 1900s, among upper classes In British India, sport hunting for predatory animals was widespread, this led to the regular appearance of cannibals.
In his own words, Corbett only once shot an innocent animal in the deaths of people, and he was very sorry about it. Corbett noted that man-eating animals themselves are capable of chasing the hunter. Therefore, he preferred to hunt alone and pursue the beast on foot. He often hunted with his dog, a spaniel named Robin, about which he wrote in detail in his first book, Kumaon Cannibals.
Corbett risked his life to save the lives of others, thus earning the respect of the population of the areas in which he hunted.
Corbett's home in the Indian village of Kaladhungi, Nainital, has been turned into his museum. The 221-acre piece of land that Corbett bought in 1915 is still in its original state. Also preserved in the village are the house that Corbett built for his friend Moti Singh, and the Corbett Wall, a 7.2 km long stone wall that protects the village fields from wild animals.
Renamed in honor of Jim Corbett in 1957 national park named after Malcolm Haley in Uttarakhand, India. In the 1930s, Corbett played a key role in establishing this protected area.
In 1968, one of the surviving subspecies of the tiger, the Indochinese tiger, also known as the Corbett's tiger (lat. Panthera tigris corbetti), was named after Corbett.
sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champawat_Tiger
http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/ruwiki/1674147
http://turin-turin.spox.ru/ru/blog/1262.ohotnik_za_l.html
http://www.factroom.ru/facts/24534
There was a time and we found out if it happens. And you know, and maybe you think that it happens The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy is made -
