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For Moradabad man-eater, is man off the menu?
Amit Bhattacharya,TNN | Aug 17, 2014, 10.44 AM IST


With the big cat which terrorized four districts of UP earlier this year staying away from human kills, experts are debating whether it's possible for a tiger to change its stripes

On a cold December morning last year, a tiger was discov ered in the middle of what was virtually a human jungle -Mithunpur Mouza village in UP's Sambhal district, some 120 km from the nearest tiger habitat. It was still dark when the striped predator dragged a 21-year-old youth squatting by a pond into a sugarcane field and partially ate the body . For the next 40-odd days, big cat terror reigned in four districts of the state as six more human kills were attributed to this `Man-eater of Moradabad'.

Professional hunters were summoned, camera traps laid, baits placed and even drones pressed into service in one of the most intense animal hunts mounted in the country. But the tiger, despite being hustled and hounded, remained elusive.

As if guided by an internal compass, it headed north, homing in on the forests around Corbett National Park. The killings continued, the last two taking place after the animal had travelled more than 100km in a few weeks and reached the forest.

And then, just as suddenly as they had begun, the attacks ceased.

It's now more than six months since the last kill -that of 65-year-old cattle-herder Lal Singh, whose halfeaten body was found in the Sahuwala forest range of Bijnor district.

For some reason, the `man-eater' has stopped preying on humans -a highly unusual behaviour that raises tantalizing questions for wildlife biologists. Can a man-eating tiger change its stripes? Could it return exclusively to natural prey and bust the myth, `once a maneater, always a man-eater'?

"The seventh and last human kill made by the tiger, as far as our assessment goes, was on February 6. One animal attack took place after that, on July 22, but we believe this predator was a leopard," says Kamlesh Kumar, Conservator of Forests, whose jurisdiction extends to the affected districts of Moradabad, Sambhal, Amroha and Bijnor.

The tiger's presumed turnaround appears to be without precedent. "I'm yet to come across wildlife literature on a tiger, that has repeatedly killed humans, going back to solely feeding on natural prey," says Yadvendradev Jhala, a big cat specialist at Wildlife Institute of India.

Jhala says there are three possibilities on why the animal hasn't preyed on humans after Feb 6.

"One, the tiger could have died. Two, it may have been an injured animal whose wounds have healed, thus tak ing away the pressing need to prey on hu mans. And three, the tiger may have been a transient male who strayed out in search of a terri tory and has now found one in the Corbett land scape where the possibility of coming across humans is low," says the wildlife biologist.

While the possibility cannot be discounted, there's no positive evidence that the animal has died. Both Kumar and Corbett NP warden Samir Sinha say no tiger carcasses have been found in the area in recent months.

But other imponderables remain. Despite its extraordinary history , very little is known about the tiger, including its age and sex. Although local foresters had assessed it to be a young female, these were based on fleeting sightings and pugmarks, both quite unreliable in reaching this conclusion. As the animal has since returned to tiger territory without being photographed, the identity of the Moradabad Man-eater may never be known.

Wherever it is, does the tiger retain its `memory' of stalking humans and is it likely to return to it? Expert opinion is nuanced. Tiger scientist K Ullas Karanth feels if the animal is alive and fit, and has sufficient wild prey , "it is unlikely to attack humans, particularly given how it has been disturbed after such kills in the past."

"My feeling is that if a man-eater has been sufficiently harassed and chased, it becomes wary of humans. It may still take a solitary , vulnerable human, if it had hunted humans repeatedly earlier," he adds.

For Jhala, who knows the Corbett landscape well, this tiger is more likely to kill humans than others of the species. "Humans remain on its menu card but it may be in an area where it does not encounter men," he says.

These aren't academic questions. With man-animal conflicts on the rise, such case studies could give wildlife biologists insights into a range of big cat behaviour under stress. Hopefully, the Moradabad tiger won't add any further to this body of knowledge.

Moradabad man-eater was tigress, a young tigress confirmed by locals and the hunters after her.When enquired about her from Corbett park insider(part of hunting squad) was told with a wink of an eye that problem was taken care off. I am under the impression that she was poisoned on her kill by the park staff as the politicians were against the killing and want her captured instead. It is highly skeptical that a man-eater will let a human go if encountered, when hungry.