The Leopard of Rudraprayag was a male

man-eating 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 ...

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 ...

, reputed to have killed over 125 people. It was eventually killed by hunter and author

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 ...

Attacks

The first victim of the

was from

Benji Village Benji is a village near the small town Silli (Agastyamuni) of Rudraprayag District, Uttarakhand State in India. It is pronounced as Byenji in local Garhwali language. It is known for being the site of the first victim of the Leopard of Rudrapra ...

, and was killed in 1918. For the next eight years, people were afraid to venture alone at night on the road to the Hindu holy shrines of

Kedarnath Kedarnath is a town and Nagar Panchayat in Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand, India, known primarily for the Kedarnath Temple. It is approximately 86 kilometres from Rudraprayag, the district headquarter. Kedarnath is the most remote of the ...

and

Badrinath Badrinath is a town and nagar panchayat in Chamoli district in the state of Uttarakhand, India. A Hindu holy place, it is one of the four sites in India's Char Dham Hindu pilgrimage, pilgrimage and is also part of India's Chota Char Dham pilgr ...

, for it passed through the leopard's territory, and few villagers left their houses after dark. The leopard, preferring human flesh, would break down doors, leap through windows, claw through the mud or thatch walls of huts and drag the occupants out before devouring them. According to official records, the leopard killed over 125 people. However, Corbett notes that the number of deaths was probably higher due to unreported kills and deaths due to injuries sustained in attacks.

Hunt for the leopard

Units of

Gurkha The Gurkhas or Gorkhas (), with endonym Gorkhali ), are soldiers native to the Indian Subcontinent, chiefly residing within Nepal and some parts of Northeast India. The Gurkha units are composed of Nepalis and Indian Gorkhas and are recruit ...

soldiers and

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

soldiers were sent to track it, but failed. Attempts to kill the leopard with high powered gin traps and poison also failed. Several well-known hunters tried to capture the leopard and the British government offered financial rewards. All of this, however, ended in failure. In the autumn of 1925, Jim Corbett took it upon himself to try to kill the leopard and, after a ten-week hunt, he successfully did so on 2 May 1926.

Reasons for becoming a man-eater

Corbett's notes revealed that this leopard, a large elderly male, was in fine condition except for a few healed injuries sustained from hunters after it had become a man-eater. The leopard had started hunting people eight years earlier, when it was still young; therefore it was not old age that caused it to turn to hunting people. Corbett wrote that, in his opinion, human bodies left unburied during disease epidemics were the main reason for the Rudraprayag and Panar leopards to become man-eaters. At the end of the introduction of his book ''

Man-Eaters of Kumaon ''Man-Eaters of Kumaon'' is a 1944 book written by hunter-naturalist Jim Corbett. It details the experiences that Corbett had in the Kumaon region of India from the 1900s to the 1930s, while hunting man-eating Bengal tigers and Indian leopards. ...

'', Corbett wrote:

Aftermath

Rudraprayag Rudraprayag is a town and a municipality in Rudraprayag district in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. Rudraprayag is one of the Panch Prayag (five confluences) of Alaknanda River, the point of confluence of rivers Alaknanda and Mandakini. Kedar ...

, there is a sign-board which marks the spot where the leopard was shot. There is a fair held at Rudraprayag commemorating the killing of the leopard. The leopard was the subject of a 2005

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

TV Series '' Manhunters'', in the episode The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, which presents an entirely fictionalized representation of Jim Corbett's hunt.

References

* ''The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag'',

, Oxford university press, {{DEFAULTSORT:Leopard Of Rudraprayag Mammals of India Rudraprayag

1926 animal deaths Man-eaters of India History of Uttarakhand Individual leopards Individual wild animals