![Gunsore leopard (Somnapur village, Seoni district)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Gunsore_leopard_%28Somnapur_village%2C_Seoni_district%29.jpg)
Leopard attacks are attacks inflicted upon humans, other leopards and other animals by the leopard. The frequency of leopard attacks on humans varies by geographical region and historical period. Despite the
leopard
The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...
's (''Panthera pardus'') extensive range from
sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...
to
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
, attacks are regularly reported only in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
.
Among the five "
big cat
The term "big cat" is typically used to refer to any of the five living members of the genus '' Panthera'', namely the tiger, lion, jaguar, leopard, and snow leopard.
Despite enormous differences in size, various cat species are quite similar ...
s", leopards are less likely to become
man-eater
A man-eater is an animal that preys on humans as a pattern of hunting behavior. This does not include the scavenging of corpses, a single attack born of opportunity or desperate hunger, or the incidental eating of a human that the animal has kil ...
s—only
jaguar
The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large cat species and the only living member of the genus '' Panthera'' native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the largest cat species in the Americas and the th ...
s and
snow leopard
The snow leopard (''Panthera uncia''), also known as the ounce, is a Felidae, felid in the genus ''Panthera'' native to the mountain ranges of Central Asia, Central and South Asia. It is listed as Vulnerable species, Vulnerable on the IUCN Red ...
s have a less fearsome reputation.
However, leopards are established predators of non-human
primate
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians (monkeys and apes, the latter including huma ...
s, sometimes preying on species as large as the
western lowland gorilla
The western lowland gorilla (''Gorilla gorilla gorilla'') is one of two Critically Endangered subspecies of the western gorilla (''Gorilla gorilla'') that lives in Montane ecosystems#Montane forests, montane, Old-growth forest, primary and sec ...
.
Other primates may make up 80% of the leopard's diet. While leopards generally avoid humans, they tolerate proximity to humans better than
lion
The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphi ...
s and
tiger
The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus '' Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on u ...
s, and often come into conflict with humans when raiding livestock.
Indian leopard
The Indian leopard (''Panthera pardus fusca'') is a leopard subspecies widely distributed on the Indian subcontinent. The species ''Panthera pardus'' is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List because populations have declined following habi ...
attacks may have peaked during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, coinciding with rapid urbanization.
Attacks in India are still relatively common, and in some regions of the country leopards kill more humans than all other
large
Large means of great size.
Large may also refer to:
Mathematics
* Arbitrarily large, a phrase in mathematics
* Large cardinal, a property of certain transfinite numbers
* Large category, a category with a proper class of objects and morphisms (or ...
carnivore
A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other sof ...
s combined.
The Indian states of
Gujarat
Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...
,
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...
,
Maharashtra
Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a states and union territories of India, state in the western India, western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the List of states and union te ...
,
Uttarakhand
Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...
, and
West Bengal
West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...
experience the most severe human–leopard conflict. In Nepal, most attacks occur in the midland regions (the
Terai
The Terai or Tarai is a lowland region in northern India and southern Nepal that lies south of the outer foothills of the Himalayas, the Sivalik Hills, and north of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. This lowland belt is characterised by tall grasslands, scr ...
, midhills, and
lesser Himalaya
The Lower Himalayan Range ( ne, पर्वत शृङ्खला parbat shrinkhalā) – also called the Middle Himalayas or Lesser Himalayas or Himachal – is a major east–west mountain range with elevations 3,700 to 4,500 m (12,000 to ...
).
One study concluded that the rate of leopard predation on humans in Nepal is 16 times higher than anywhere else, resulting in approximately 1.9 human deaths annually per million inhabitants, averaging 55 kills per year.
In the former
Soviet Central Asia
Soviet Central Asia (russian: link=no, Советская Средняя Азия, Sovetskaya Srednyaya Aziya) was the part of Central Asia administered by the Soviet Union between 1918 and 1991, when the Central Asian republics declared ind ...
,
leopard
The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...
attacks have been reported in the
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historically ...
, Turkmenia (present day
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the sout ...
), and the
Lankaran
Lankaran ( az, Lənkəran, ) is a city in Azerbaijan, on the coast of the Caspian Sea, near the southern border with Iran. As of 2021, the city had a population of 89,300. It is next to, but independent of, Lankaran District. The city forms a dis ...
region of present-day
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...
. Rare attacks have occurred in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
.
It is possible for humans to win a fight against a leopard, as in the case of a 56-year-old woman who killed an attacking leopard with a sickle and spade, and survived with heavy injuries, and the case of a 73-year-old man in Kenya who fatally tore the tongue out of a leopard. Globally, attacks on humans—especially nonfatal attacks that result in only minor injury—likely remain under-reported due to the lack of monitoring programs and standardized reporting protocol.
Leopard predation on hominids
![Man being attacked by a panther - Sala della Sfinge - Domus aurea - Rome - 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Man_being_attacked_by_a_panther_-_Sala_della_Sfinge_-_Domus_aurea_-_Rome_-_2.png)
In 1970, South African paleontologist
C. K. Brain
Charles Kimberlin Brain, also known as C. K. "Bob" Brain (born 7 May 1931, in Southern Rhodesia, now modern Harare, Zimbabwe), is a South African paleontologist who has studied and taught African cave taphonomy for more than fifty years.
Biogr ...
showed that a juvenile ''
Paranthropus robustus
''Paranthropus robustus'' is a species of robustness (morphology), robust australopithecine from the Early Pleistocene, Early and possibly Middle Pleistocene, Middle Pleistocene of the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, about 2.27 to 0.87 (or, mo ...
'' individual, SK 54, had been killed by a leopard at
Swartkrans
Swartkrans is a fossil-bearing cave designated as a South African National Heritage Site, located about from Johannesburg. It is located in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site and is notable for being extremely rich in archaeological m ...
in
Gauteng
Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'.
Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...
,
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
approximately 1.8 million years ago.
The SK 54 cranium bears two holes in the back of the skull—holes that perfectly match the width and spacing of lower leopard canine teeth. The leopard appears to have dragged its kill into a tree to eat in seclusion, much like leopards do today.
Numerous leopard fossils have been found at the site, suggesting that the felids were predators of early hominids. The revelation that these injuries were not the result of interpersonal aggression but were leopard-inflicted dealt a fatal blow to the then-popular
killer ape theory
The killer ape theory or killer ape hypothesis is the theory that war and interpersonal aggression was the driving force behind human evolution. It was originated by Raymond Dart in the 1950s; it was developed further in ''African Genesis'' by Rob ...
.
Another hominid fossil consisting of a 6-million-year-old ''
Orrorin tugenensis
''Orrorin tugenensis'' is a postulated early species of Homininae, estimated at and discovered in 2000. It is not confirmed how ''Orrorin'' is related to modern humans. Its discovery was used to argue against the hypothesis that australopitheci ...
'' femur (BAR 1003'00), recovered from the
Tugen Hills
The Tugen Hills (also known as ''Saimo'') are a series of hills in Baringo County, Kenya. They are located in the central-western portion of Kenya.
The Tugen Hills represent one of the few areas in Africa preserving a succession of deposits from ...
in
Kenya
)
, national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Nairobi
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Nairobi
, ...
, preserves puncture damage tentatively identified as leopard bite marks. This fossil evidence, along with modern studies of primate–leopard interaction, has fueled speculation that leopard predation played a major role in primate evolution, particularly on cognitive development.
Human–leopard conflict
Reducing human–leopard conflict has proven difficult. Conflict tends to increase during periods of drought or when the leopard's natural prey becomes scarce. Shrinking leopard habitat and growing human populations also increase conflict. In
Uganda
}), is a landlocked country in East Africa
East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territor ...
, retaliatory attacks on humans increased when starving villagers began expropriating leopards' kills (a feeding strategy known as
kleptoparasitism
Kleptoparasitism (etymologically, parasitism by theft) is a form of feeding in which one animal deliberately takes food from another. The strategy is evolutionarily stable when stealing is less costly than direct feeding, which can mean when foo ...
).
The economic damage resulting from loss of livestock to carnivores caused villagers in
Bhutan
Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...
's
Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park
Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park (formerly Black Mountains National Park) covers an area of in central Bhutan. It protects a large area of the Black Mountains (Bhutan), Black Mountains, a sub−range of the Himalayan Range System.
The park ...
to lose more than two-thirds of their annual cash income in 2000, with leopards blamed for 53% of the losses.
Like other large carnivores, leopards are capable of
surplus killing
Surplus killing, also known as excessive killing, killing for sport, henhouse syndrome, or overkill, is a common behavior exhibited by predators, in which they kill more prey than they can immediately eat and then they either cache or abandon th ...
. Under normal conditions, prey are too scarce for this behavior, but when the opportunity presents itself leopards may instinctually kill in excess for later consumption.
One
leopard
The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia, a ...
in
Cape Province
The Province of the Cape of Good Hope ( af, Provinsie Kaap die Goeie Hoop), commonly referred to as the Cape Province ( af, Kaapprovinsie) and colloquially as The Cape ( af, Die Kaap), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequen ...
,
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
killed 51 sheep and lambs in a single incident.
Translocation (the capture, transport, and release) of "problem leopards", as with other territorial felids, is generally ineffective: translocated leopards either immediately return or other leopards move in and claim the vacant territory. One translocated leopard in Cape Province traveled nearly to return to his old territory. Translocations are also expensive, tend to result in high mortality (up to 70%), and may make leopards more aggressive towards humans, thus failing as both a management and a conservation strategy.
Historically, lethal control of problem animals was the primary method of conflict management. Although this remains the situation in many countries,
leopards are afforded the highest legal protection in India under the
Wildlife Protection Act of 1972
The Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted for protection of plants and animal species. Before 1972, India had only five designated national parks. Among other reforms, the Act established scheduled pr ...
—only man-eaters can be killed and only when they are considered likely to continue to prey on humans. In Uttarakhand, the state with the most severe human–leopard conflict, 45 leopards were legally declared man-eaters and shot by wildlife officials between 2001 and 2010.
Where legal, herders may shoot at leopards who prey on their livestock. An injured leopard may become an exclusive predator of livestock if it is unable to kill normal prey, since domesticated animals typically lack natural defenses.
Frequent livestock-raiding may cause leopards to lose their fear of humans, and shooting injuries may have caused some leopards to become man-eaters. There has been increasing acceptance that the "problem leopard" paradigm may be
anthropomorphization of normal carnivore behavior, and that translocations are unlikely to stop livestock depredation.
In an effort to reduce the shooting of "problem leopards" and lessen the financial burden on herders, some governments provide monetary compensation, although the sum is often less than the value of the lost livestock.
Man-eaters
Characteristics
The leopard is largely a nocturnal hunter. For its size, it is the most powerful large felid after the jaguar, able to drag a carcass larger than itself up a tree.
Leopards can run more than , leap more than horizontally and vertically, and have a more developed sense of smell than tigers.
They are strong climbers and can descend down a tree headfirst.
Man-eating leopards have earned a reputation as being particularly bold and difficult to track. British hunters
Jim Corbett
Edward James Corbett (25 July 1875 – 19 April 1955) was a British hunter, tracker, naturalist, and author who hunted a number of man-eating tigers and leopards in the Indian subcontinent.
He held the rank of colonel in the British Indian ...
(1875–1955) and
Kenneth Anderson (1910–1974) wrote that hunting leopards presented more challenges than any other animal.
Indian naturalist
J. C. Daniel (1927–2011), former curator of the
Bombay Natural History Society
The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), founded on 15 September 1883, is one of the largest non-governmental organisations in India engaged in conservation and biodiversity research. It supports many research efforts through grants and publi ...
, reprinted many early twentieth-century accounts of man-eating leopards in his book ''The Leopard in India: A Natural History'' (Dehradun: Natraj Publishers, 2009). One such account in the ''
Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society
The ''Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society'' (also ''JBNHS'') is a natural history journal published several times a year by the Bombay Natural History Society. First published in January 1886, and published with only a few interruptio ...
'' describes the unique danger posed by leopards:
Like the tiger, the panther eopardsometimes takes to man-eating, and a man-eating panther is even more to be dreaded than a tiger with similar tastes, on account of its greater agility, and also its greater stealthiness and silence. It can stalk and jump, and...can climb better than a tiger, and it can also conceal itself in astonishingly meager cover, often displaying uncanny intelligence in this act. A man-eating panther frequently breaks through the frail walls of village huts and carries away children and even adults as they lie asleep.
One study concluded that only 9 of 152 documented man-eating leopards were female.
Drawing on the sex and physical condition of 78 man-eating leopards, the same study concluded that man-eaters were typically uninjured mature males (79.5%), with a fewer number of aged and immature males (11.6% and 3.8%, respectively).
Once a leopard has killed and eaten a human, they are likely to persist as man-eaters—they may even show a nearly exclusive preference for humans.
In "Man-Eaters of Kumaon", Jim Corbett mentioned that leopards are driven to man-eating by acquiring a taste for human flesh due to scavenging on corpses thrown into the jungle during an epidemic. He wrote,"A leopard, in an area in which his natural food is scarce, finding these bodies very soon acquires a taste for human flesh, and when the disease dies down and normal conditions are established, he very naturally, on finding his food supply cut off, takes to killing human beings". Of the two man-eating leopards of Kumaon, which between them killed 525 people, the Panar Leopard followed on the heels of a very severe outbreak of cholera, while the
Rudraprayag Leopard followed the
1918 influenza epidemic
The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case was ...
which was particularly deadly in India. Corbett wrote that the
Rudraprayag man-eater once broke into a pen holding 40 goats, but instead of attacking the livestock it killed and ate the sleeping 14-year-old boy who had been assigned to guard them.
Leopard attacks on humans tend to occur at night, and often close to villages. There have been documented incidents of leopards forcing their way into human dwellings at night and attacking the inhabitants in their sleep.
A number of fatal attacks have also occurred in zoos and homes with pet leopards.
During predatory attacks, leopards typically bite their prey's throat or the
nape
The nape is the back of the neck. In technical anatomical/medical terminology, the nape is also called the nucha (from the Medieval Latin rendering of the Arabic , "spinal marrow"). The corresponding adjective is ''nuchal'', as in the term ''nu ...
of the neck, lacerating or severing
jugular veins
The jugular veins are veins that take deoxygenated blood from the head back to the heart via the superior vena cava. The internal jugular vein descends next to the internal carotid artery and continues posteriorly to the sternocleidomastoid mus ...
and
carotid arteries
In anatomy, the left and right common carotid arteries (carotids) (Entry "carotid"
in
exsanguination
Exsanguination is death caused by loss of blood. Depending upon the health of the individual, people usually die from losing half to two-thirds of their blood; a loss of roughly one-third of the blood volume is considered very serious. Even a sing ...
. The spine may be crushed and the skull perforated, exposing the brain.
Survivors of attacks typically suffer extensive trauma to the head, neck, and face. Multibacterial infection resulting from the contamination of wounds by leopard oral flora occurs in 5–30% of attack survivors, complicating recovery.
Before the advent of antibiotics, 75% of attack survivors died from infection.
Notable man-eaters
![Corbett4](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Corbett4.jpg)
*Leopard of Panar : The Leopard of Panar was a male leopard reported as being responsible for at least 400 fatal attacks on humans in the Panar region of the
Almora district
Almora is a District (India), district in the Kumaon Division of Uttarakhand state, India. The headquarters is at Almora. It is 1,638 meters above sea level. The neighbouring regions are Pithoragarh district to the east, Chamoli district to the w ...
, situated in
Kumaon Kumaon or Kumaun may refer to:
* Kumaon division, a region in Uttarakhand, India
* Kumaon Kingdom, a former country in Uttarakhand, India
* Kumaon, Iran, a village in Isfahan Province, Iran
* , a ship of the Royal Indian Navy during WWII
See also
...
Northern India in the early 20th century. Jim Corbett heard of the leopard while hunting the
Champawat tiger
The Champawat Tiger was a Bengal Tigress responsible for an estimated 436 deaths in Nepal and the Kumaon division of India, during the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century. Her attacks have been listed in the ...
in 1907, and in 1910 he set out to kill it. Although it apparently claimed hundreds of more lives than the Rudraprayag man-eater, the Panar man-eater received less attention from the British Indian press, which Corbett attributed to the remoteness of Almora.
*
Leopard of the Central Provinces
*
Leopard of Rudraprayag
The Leopard of Rudraprayag was a male man-eating leopard, reputed to have killed over 125 people. It was eventually killed by hunter and author Jim Corbett.
Attacks
The first victim of the leopard was from Benji Village, and was killed in ...
*
Leopard of Gummalapur
*
Leopard of the Yellagiri Hills
Kenneth Douglas Stewart Anderson (8 March 1910 – 30 August 1974) was an Indian writer and hunter who wrote books about his adventures in the jungles of South India.
Biography
Kenneth Anderson was born in Bolarum, Secunderabad and came fr ...
*Leopard of the Golis Range: In 1899 British officer
H. G. C. Swayne (1860–1940) wrote of a man-eating leopard that had allegedly killed more than 100 humans in the
Golis Mountains
The Golis Mountains are a mountain range in Somaliland. Also known as ''Qar Golis'', they cut through the Togdheer region, and end near the Gan Libah.
Jerato Pass
This range has a mountain pass known as the "Jerrato Pass".
See also
* Cal Ma ...
of
British Somaliland
British Somaliland, officially the Somaliland Protectorate ( so, Dhulka Maxmiyada Soomaalida ee Biritishka), was a British Empire, British protectorate in present-day Somaliland. During its existence, the territory was bordered by Italian Soma ...
. Swayne's brief account appears in the volume ''Great and Small Game of Africa'' (London: Roland Ward, 1899), edited by the prominent British naturalist
Henry Bryden (1854–1937):
In 1889 there was a leopard, said to be a panther, which had haunted the Mirso ledge of the Golis range for some years, and was supposed to have killed over a hundred people. It was in the habit of lying in wait at a corner of a very dark, rough jungle path, where huge rocks overlooked the track; and the Somalis used to show a boulder, some 6 feet high, a yard from the path, in the flat top of which was a depression shaped like a panther's body, from which the beast was said to spring upon travellers.
According to Swayne, leopards were more abundant in the Golis Mountains than anywhere else in British Somaliland, and were responsible for 90% of all attacks on sheep and goats. The rocky terrain of the Golis made tracking and killing leopards next to impossible.
At the time of the attacks, this remote territory remained largely unexplored by the British, and little else is known of the Golis Range man-eater.
*Leopard of the Mulher Valley: In 1903 L. S. Osmaston (1870–1969), a conservator employed by the
Imperial Forestry Service, reported that a man-eating leopard had killed more than 30 humans in the
Mulher Valley between 1901 and 1902.
Osmaston twice set out to kill the leopard in February and March 1902, but was unsuccessful. His forestry work required him to leave Mulher later that month, and he was unable to return until late November. The leopard's last attack occurred a few days later on 3 December:
I heard a boy of 15 had been killed at Wadai, from my camp; this boy was most unfortunate. Last year the panther had tried to get him, but only mauled one leg; my wife and I were able to dose the wound with carbolic oil and the boy got well; this time he and one or two others were sitting close to a bright fire on a threshing floor near the village in the early part of the night and the panther came and carried him off: the panther took him about a quarter of a mile 00 mto a patch of high grass and brushwood and ate all he could of the head, the flesh of one leg and all his inside; so there was plenty left for the beast to come back for.
Osmaston constructed a
blind from the boy's corpse and waited. The leopard returned to the area in the afternoon, but cautiously avoided approaching the body until after dark. When it finally ventured within shooting range, Osmaston fired with his double-barreled
express rifle
The term ''express'' was first applied to hunting rifles and ammunition beginning in the mid-19th century, to indicate a rifle or ammunition capable of higher than typical velocities. The early express cartridges used a heavy charge of black p ...
. The injured animal darted off into the night, and was killed the following morning when it was discovered alive some distance away. Osmaston speculated that the attacks began during the
Indian famine of 1899–1900
The Indian famine of 1899–1900 began with the failure of the summer monsoons in 1899 over Western and Central India and, during the next year, affected an area of and a population of 59.5 million. The famine was acute in the Central Provinc ...
, the leopard having taken to man-eating after killing a dying person in the jungle. He also believed the man-eater was responsible for other fatal attacks in the nearby
Dang and
Dhule district
Dhule district (Marathi pronunciation: ̪ʰuɭeː is a district of Maharashtra, India. The city of Dhule is the administrative headquarters of the district. It is part of North Maharashtra.
The Dhule district previously comprised tracts of ...
s, but did not know the exact number of fatalities.
*Leopard of Kahani:
Robert A. Sterndale (1839–1902) and
James Forsyth (1838–1871) gave accounts of a man-eating leopard that killed "nearly a hundred persons" in the
Seoni district between 1857 and 1860. When Sterndale received word of the attacks he pursued the man-eater with his brother-in-law, W. Brooke Thomson, but their efforts proved fruitless.
The breakout of the
Indian Rebellion of 1857
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...
sent Sterndale away for two years and ended his chance to capture the man-eater. The leopard evaded all attempts by locals to kill it and terrorized the villages of Dhuma and Kahani, sometimes killing three humans in a single night. According to Sterndale, the leopard preferred to consume blood rather than flesh, and most bodies showed few injuries other than telltale bite marks to the throat. A large reward was offered for the leopard's capture, and it was then unexpectedly killed one night by an inexperienced native hunter.
When Forsyth passed through Seoni several years later, the leopard's story had become legendary. He later recounted a myth he had heard from the locals:
A man and his wife were travelling back to their home from a pilgrimage to Benares, when they met on the road a panther. The woman was terrified; but the man said, "Fear not, I possess a charm by which I can transform myself into any shape. I will now become a panther, and remove this obstacle from the road, and on my return you must place this powder in my mouth, when I will recover my proper shape." He then swallowed his own portion of the magic powder, and assuming the likeness of the panther, persuaded him to leave the path. Returning to the woman, he opened his mouth to receive the transposing charm; but she, terrified by his dreadful appearance and open jaws, dropped it in the mire, and it was lost. Then, in despair, he killed the author of his misfortune, and ever after revenged himself on the race whose form he could never resume.
*Leopard of Punanai: The leopard called "man-eater of Punanai" is the only officially accounted for man-eating leopard of Sri Lanka, where leopard attacks rarely happen.
[Kithsiri Gunawardena, "Cats in Sri Lanka & The Sri Lankan Leopard" accessed on http://www.wilpattu.com/sri-lankan-leopard.php at 4.11.2016.] It killed at least 12 people on a jungle road near the hamlet of
Punanai
Punanai ( ta, புனானை, translit=Puṉāṉai; si, දොඹාපෙ, translit=Dom̆bāpe; sometimes spelled Punani) is a small hamlet in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit- ...
, not far from
Batticaloa
Batticaloa ( ta, மட்டக்களப்பு, ''Maṭṭakkaḷappu''; si, මඩකලපුව, ''Maḍakalapuwa'') is a major city in the Eastern Province, Sri Lanka, and its former capital. It is the administrative capital of the B ...
in the east of Sri Lanka. Its first victim was a child. Roper Shelton Agar, the hunter who killed it in August 1924, made a detailed record of the leopard and his killing of it. Agar relates that the man-eater was very bold and stealthy:
[ (A shortened account of the story by Roper S. Agar as published in the Sri Lanka Wildlife Society's magazine Loris Volume 1, December 1938, No. 5.)]
"attacking even gangs of three or four people and carts. The beast never appears on the road, but stalks them through the jungle and at a suitable opportunity springs out upon one of the unfortunate stragglers."
After a failed attempt the previous day, Agar was successful in killing it when waiting for it in a tree hut that he got made near the corpse of a man that had been killed by the leopard, knowing that it would return to eat the remainder of the corpse:
"It was about 3 p.m. after a heavy shower, that the leopard came out. ... "licking" his chops, looking at his kill a few yards away, and looking at me. ... My 4790 was ready on my lap, the safety catch slipped up. I knew at that range I could place the bullet where I liked, and I chose the neck shot, as I knew at that angle the explosive bullet would rake the creature's vital organs. At the shot the leopard rolled over-stone-dead-never to do any more dirty work. ... At the sound of the shot, all my people and others who had collected round my car to wait for the result came running back. ... I wished to get out of the cursed place with its ugly sights as soon as possible. Corpse smells were suffocating me. ... The man-eater was not a very large leopard. ... He stood high off the ground, was in fine condition, and showed abnormal development for its size in respect of pads, neck muscles and head. The canine teeth were very long. He had a great number of knife wounds, old and new, showing that some of his victims had fought for their lives. ... I heard that his first victim was a young Moor boy, and that may possibly have been the beginning of his notorious career."
The leopard was stuffed and is now in the National Museum of Sri Lanka in Colombo.
The leopard features in one of the books of
Michael Ondaatje
Philip Michael Ondaatje (; born 12 September 1943) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer, essayist, novelist, editor, and filmmaker. He is the recipient of multiple literary awards such as the Governor General's Award, the Giller P ...
: ''The Man-eater of Punanai — a Journey of Discovery to the Jungles of Old Ceylon'' (1992).
Recent attacks
* On January 6, 2015, an Indian leopard injured a boy in
Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary
The Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary is a protected area in the Upper Gangetic plain, near Bahraich city in Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh, India and covers an area of in the Terai of the Bahraich district. In 1987, it was brought under the ...
,
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...
.
Another leopard killed 2 men in
Kolar district
Kolar district ) is a district in the state of Karnataka, India.
Kolar ( ಕೋಲಾರ) is the district headquarters. Located in southern Karnataka, it is the state's easternmost district. The district is surrounded by the Bangalore Rural ...
,
Karnataka
Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...
.
On January 13, 2015, a leopard injured a woman's neck with its paw in Jiuni Valley of
Mandi district
Mandi district is one of the central districts of Himachal Pradesh state in northern India. The town of Mandi is the headquarters of the district.
The main native language is Mandeali.
As of 2011 it is the second most populous district of H ...
, while she had gone to collect fodder for household animals.
On January 25, 2015, a leopard killed a girl in
Galyat
Galyat ( ur, گلیات ) region, or hill tract, (also written Galliat and Galiyat) is a narrow strip or area roughly 50–80 km north-east of Islamabad, Pakistan, extending on both sides of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-Punjab border, between Abb ...
,
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
. This was one of a number of attacks that were reported in the area for over a year and a half.
The next day, a leopard mauled 5 people, seriously injuring 3, before being killed in
Jalpaiguri district
Jalpaiguri district () is a district of the Indian state of West Bengal. The district was established in 1869 during British Raj.
The headquarters of the district are in the city of Jalpaiguri, which is also the divisional headquarters of No ...
.
* On February 14, 2015, a leopard injured 2 villagers in
Sagar district.
Four days later, a leopard injured 6 people in
Shravasti district
Shravasti district is one of the districts of the Uttar Pradesh state of India, with Bhinga town as its district headquarters. Shravasti district is a part of Devipatan Division. According to Government of India, it is among the 121 minority co ...
.
On February 22, 2015, a girl was injured on the head when a leopard attacked her in Dingore village (approximately from
Junnar
Junnar (Marathi pronunciation: ͡ʒunːəɾ is a city in the Pune district of the Indian state of Maharashtra. The city has history dating back to the first millennium. The nearby fort of Shivneri was the birthplace of Maratha king Chatrapa ...
).
On March 5, 2015, a leopardess critically injured 4 people before being stabbed to death in a forest of
Jorhat district.
* In the night of Friday the 4th of May, 2018, a leopard consumed a toddler in an unfenced part of a safari lodge in
Queen Elizabeth National Park
Queen Elizabeth National Park is a national park in Uganda.
Location
Queen Elizabeth National Park (QENP) is in the Western Region of Uganda, spanning the districts of Kasese, Kamwenge, Rubirizi, and Rukungiri. The park is approximately by ro ...
, Uganda. The 3-year-old toddler, whose mother was a ranger at the park, had been following a nanny outdoors without the latter's knowledge when he was attacked.
See also
*
Chinese leopard The term Chinese leopard refers to any of the following three leopard (''Panthera pardus'') subspecies occurring in China:
*Indian leopard (''P. p. fusca'') in southern Tibet, where leopards have been recorded in Qomolangma National Nature Preserve. ...
*
Human–wildlife conflict
Human–wildlife conflict (HWC) refers to the negative interactions between human and wild animals, with undesirable consequences both for people and their resources, on the one hand, and wildlife and their habitats on the other (IUCN 2020). HWC ...
*
Tiger attack
Tiger attacks are an extreme form of human–wildlife conflict which occur for various reasons and have claimed more human lives than attacks by any of the other big cats. The most comprehensive study of deaths due to tiger attacks estimates that ...
*
Anthrozoology
Anthrozoology, also known as human–nonhuman-animal studies (HAS), is the subset of ethnobiology that deals with biological interaction, interactions between humans and other animals. It is an interdisciplinary field that overlaps with other ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leopard attack
Felidae attacks
Deaths due to leopard attacks