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The Thak man-eater was a female Bengal tiger who killed and ate four human victims (two women, two men) between September and November 1938.〔Corbett, Jim. (1944) “Man Eaters of Kumaon”. Twenty sixth impression, 2003. Oxford University Press〕 She was operating in Kumaon, at the Nepalese border, between the villages Thak, Chuka, Kot Kindri and Sem. The tigress was shot at about 6:00pm on November 30, 1938 by Jim Corbett. This was the last man-eater killed by Corbett. The story about Thak man-eater is known as one of the most dramatic stories about man-eating animals. It was the last story in the USA edition of the bestselling book ''Man-Eaters of Kumaon'' (published by Oxford University press in 1944). In the UK edition the last story of the book was "Just Tigers". The book ''Man-Eaters of Kumaon'' became the book of the year in USA in 1945, and a Hollywood film ''Man-Eater of Kumaon'' was made in 1948. ==Sources== The information about the Bengal female tiger, known as Thak man-eater, comes from two documental stories written by hunter, conservationist and author Jim Corbett. In a story about Chuka man-eating tiger (from the book “Temple Tiger and other Man-Eaters of Kumaon”, published in 1954 by "Oxford University Press") Corbett described how he saw for the first time a female tiger which later became known as “Thak man-eater”. According to the story, in April 1938 Corbett was concealed on a machan waiting for the Chuka man-eating tiger, but instead of a male man-eater a female tiger with two young cubs appeared. Corbett described in detail how the tigress was teaching cubs to move silently through the jungles, leading them towards the concealed kill (a carcass of a cow), and on a final stage of the search letting cubs to find the kill themselves, coordinating their search with occasional vocal signals.〔Corbett, Jim. (1954) “The Temple Tiger and more man-eaters of Kumaon”. Twenty second impression, 2002. Oxford University Press. Pg. 98-100〕 After cubs found the kill, she went asleep close to the tree where Corbett was concealed. After cubs finished feeding, she licked both of them clean and then the family left. Corbett’s description is one of the first detailed accounts of how female tigers teach their cubs behavioral patterns necessary for the survival of the tigers in the wild. The second source about the tigress is a story “Thak man-eater” from the bestselling book “Man-Eaters of Kumaon” (published in 1944 by Oxford University Press). According to Corbett, between April and September the tigress was apparently shot and wounded twice from a muzzle-loaded gun. One of the wounds to the left shoulder of the tigress became septic, incapacitating her at least for some time to hunt her usual prey. That was, according to Corbett, the reason tigress started attacking humans, particularly as she had cubs to feed. Female tigers are known sometimes to resort to man-eating when they are partly incapacitated while raising cubs. Corbett was asked to track down and kill the man-eater after the very first human kill. It was unusual for India to react so promptly to the killing of a first human victim by an animal. The reason for this was that next to the remote villages Chuka and Thak, where Thak man-eater was operating, government decided to fell trees and thousands of workers were planned to work in the area from November 1938. Governmental officials wanted to get rid of the man-eater in order not to hamper forest works. As Corbett noted in the story, he agreed to go after the tigress primarily because he wanted to help villagers to get rid of her. Corbett made two hunting expeditions to the villages Chuka, Thak and Sem (October 23 - November 7, and November 24–30). He finally managed to kill the tigress on November 30, 1938, on the very last day of his second hunting expedition, and the last day of his career as a hunter of man-eating tigers and leopards. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Thak man-eater」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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