No Beast So Fierce

by Dane Huckelbridge

  And these are just the most celebrated hunts. In total, Jim Corbett is credited with having ended the sprees of more than thirty problem tigers and leopards in the region, with a total estimated human victim count that may have exceeded one thousand. The reality of the hunts, however, despite the occasional moment of heart-pounding excitement, was in most cases far from romantic—Corbett was quite forthcoming about this when recounting the many cold, damp, and fruitless nights he spent shivering in treetop machans or trying not to fall asleep beside baited gin traps. But his persistence and his knowledge of the region’s flora and fauna usually paid off, and he bagged his man-eater. It was thanks to his early successes—beginning, of course, with the Champawat Tiger—that Corbett became the British government’s go-to man when it came to dealing with the man-eaters that began cropping up in the divisions of Garhwal and Kumaon. He would retain his post at the railway ferry terminal in Mokameh Ghat for several more years, but whenever the need arose, he would go on leave to hunt down the wanted predators. And as one might expect of a man who could stop ferocious man-eating beasts that no one else could, Jim Corbett gained a certain celebrity.

  It was a notoriety that Jim Corbett, though self-effacing by nature, seemed to have accepted, if not actively cultivated. As his legend grew, the “Gentleman Hunter” from Nainital was increasingly invited to visit the rarefied air of social clubs and formal events, becoming a frequent (and no doubt entertaining) dinner guest of the colonial elites. His assistance was requested when the government organized elaborate tiger hunts for prominent officials and visiting celebrities—including the Viceroy of India himself, Lord Linlithgow, who befriended Corbett and became a patron of sorts. Even the Queen of England, Elizabeth II, would eventually cross paths with this domiciled son of an Irish postman. Corbett, along with some aristocratic friends, would host the soon-to-be monarch when she stayed at the Treetops Lodge during a visit to Kenya just prior to her coronation—an event that would become a memorable high point in the old hunter’s career.

  The greatest boost to Corbett’s fame, however, came in the form of his hunting memoirs, the most famous of which was Man-Eaters of Kumaon, first published in 1944 by Oxford University Press. The book became a major bestseller, praised for both its accuracy and its storytelling, and by 1946, it had already sold more than half a million copies. For the American release, a lavish reception was held in New York City at the Pierre hotel. Corbett was not able to make the book signing—during the war, he had taught jungle tactics to young recruits in India, and the malaria he had acquired there had not left him in the finest of fettle. In lieu of the author, however, his publisher flew in captive tiger cubs on a private plane to sign books in fluorescent ink with their paws. All of which the American literary press ate up with a spoon. Riding the tide of the book’s popularity, other bestselling Corbett titles would follow, including The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, My India, and Jungle Lore. The success came as a pleasant surprise to Corbett, who had never anticipated a career as a writer. He did make sizable donations with the proceeds, but he was also able to live comfortably in his later years—and support his sister Maggie—thanks to the royalties and fame that the books provided. It was an existence far removed from his hardscrabble youth, when his mother had been forced to rent out half their home to pay off her dead husband’s debts, and necessity had compelled him to scour the forests for bush meat.

  Effectively, Jim Corbett had achieved the life of a true colonial sahib, complete with high-society friends, a new tenanted estate in Kaladhungi, and a long list of titles and accolades attached to his name. These included an honorary magistrateship, a Volunteer Officers’ Decoration for his service in two world wars, the Kaisar-i-Hind gold medal, and both the OBE (Order of the British Empire) and the CIE (Companion of the Indian Empire), the latter of which was awarded to him at the Birthday Honours of King George VI. Back in India, Corbett was given an exceedingly rare honor known as “The Freedom of the Forest.” This was not an officially recognized title, but rather an informal lifetime pass from the government, giving him tacit permission to engage in sport in any protected forest he liked. And Jim Corbett, always the avid sportsman, certainly took advantage of it. During the 1930s and ’40s, he was among the most influential men in the United Provinces, rubbing shoulders with lieutenant governors, maharajas, and movie stars alike, and whenever he could, he would take them hunting in the hills.

  But all of these things came at a steep price. By all accounts, Corbett was an exceedingly humble and quiet man, never bragging about his exploits or explicitly using them for personal gain—in fact, even the proceeds from Man-Eaters of Kumaon were originally intended to benefit a charity for the blind. And with few exceptions, he personally eschewed the notion of hunting tigers for sport, refusing to shoot a tiger unless it could be certified as a serial man-eater. But regardless of his intentions, or the scores of human lives he actually saved, his reputation had been built directly upon the killing of tigers. And it was becoming increasingly clear to Corbett during the latter part of his life just how uncertain the future of the Indian tiger had become.

  In 1907, when he had hunted the Champawat, there were probably close to 100,000 tigers left in the wild, more than half of which would have been found in India. By 1946, however, Corbett would confide in a letter to his friend Lord Wavell that in his opinion, fewer than four thousand wild Indian tigers remained. It was a slaughter that Jim Corbett had witnessed firsthand, arguably even contributed to, be it through his early work harvesting timber for the railroads, or as a government-contracted shikari organizing large-scale tiger hunts for visiting dignitaries. It was a revelation that may have come late for Corbett, but it possessed him fully.

  In the last two decades of his life, Corbett devoted himself to the preservation of Indian wildlife—the Bengal tiger, in particular. The legendary tiger hunter became the animal’s most dedicated conservationist. Using his connections with government officials, not to mention rare films of wild tigers that he himself had made, he actively lobbied the colonial British government to install protections for wild tiger populations, including his own brainchild, Hailey National Park, just outside of Nainital. He continued to give talks and make guest appearances at society functions, but increasingly he spoke as a naturalist bent on saving wild tigers and less as a “white hunter” who had spent much of his life dispatching them. His wildlife films and images, inspired by the early work of F. W. Champion, were pioneering feats of wildlife photography, and they served as tremendous aids in raising awareness of the plight of the Indian tiger. The man who had once carried a Martini-Henry rifle through the jungles of Kumaon now toted a 16-millimeter camera; rather than snarling tiger heads to mount on his wall, he now had pristine black-and-white photographs of the majestic cats. And Jim Corbett, who had loved and respected India’s wildlife since childhood, came to realize that he much preferred the latter.

  But India itself was changing. In the aftermath of the Second World War, after years of protests and petitions, the nation joined a number of other former colonies of the British Empire in achieving its independence. And what would become a moment of jubilation for much of the subcontinent proved to be a time of deep conflict and doubt for its colonial population—particularly those who, like the Corbetts, had been born and raised in India. In the uncertainty that followed, many gave in to their old fears, recalling the whispered tales they had grown up with of the bloody Rebellion of 1857. Fearing violent reprisals (never to materialize), or at the very least the same sort of discrimination that Indians had been subjected to for more than three centuries, most of those of European descent abandoned their adopted country and joined in a post-colonial exodus. Some returned to ancestral homes in the British Isles, others fled to the New World. And others, like Jim Corbett and his sister Maggie, sought out the remaining British colonies of East Africa.

  The decision was anything but easy. Regardless of Corbett’s background or family history, India was his home. And on
ce again, he must have felt torn between two worlds. But with most of their British acquaintances fleeing in droves, and the future of an independent India uncertain, the Corbetts hastily sold off their properties and much of their belongings. They boarded a steamer bound for Mombasa in December 1947, leaving India behind them for good.

  On June 5, 1950, a homesick Jim Corbett, on the cusp of turning seventy-five, wrote to his Kumaoni friend Jai Lal Sah, who was suffering from a serious illness back in Nainital. In his get-well note, dispatched from his new lodgings in Kenya, Corbett reflected:

  You and I, and Hira Lal, are all that are left now of the old Kumaonis. Those were happy days for all of us and it is nice to think now that though we differed occasionally on municipal matters, we remained good friends, and as good friends we will meet again on the other side of the river where we will find Krishna Sah, Kundan Lal, Kishori Lal, Ram Singh, Mathura Datt and many others who have gone before us but whom we still remember as good and valued friends.

  The river he mentions is of course the Ganges—a river he had spent much of his adult life upon, but would never see again. And the old friends he calls by name are departed Hindus—fellow Indians—whom he hopes to meet again someday on its shores. Much is revealed in this short and touching passage from Corbett, an enigmatic man who even his own friends would admit was difficult to know.

  That Jim Corbett felt compelled to leave India on the brink of its independence is a bittersweet ending, but in its own way, perhaps, a fitting one. He was simply unable to adapt to a changing world. In this regard, he was always more like the marginalized tigers he tracked through the forest than the well-adjusted human beings who crossed his path in the cities. A natural loner, a leftover from another era, he seemed to prefer a life of solitary exile on the world’s last wild fringes rather than joining in society’s industrialized march forward. Jim Corbett never married, having spent most of his prime either at isolated railway outposts or camping out in jungles, nor did he ever have any children. There have been numerous explanations for his lifelong bachelorhood posited over the years, and some of them may even hold water, although the most obvious is likely the truest of all: the man simply preferred to be alone. In later years, at his small estate in Kaladhungi, he would insist on sleeping by himself in a tent beside his brand-new house, feeling more at ease on the edge of the jungle than safe inside any man-made walls. He had been born an outsider, and to a certain extent, despite his many awards and decorations, he would die one as well.

  When his heart gave out on April 19, 1955, in Nyeri, Kenya, the old Kumoani had one final honor awaiting him. The following year, Hailey National Park, the protected wildlife sanctuary he had helped establish outside of Nainital, was renamed Jim Corbett National Park in his honor—an extraordinary show of appreciation from an independent Indian government that still held the Carpet Sahib, as he was known to his Kumaoni friends, in high esteem. And if there is an honest testament to the quality of the man, it is almost certainly this: that while in the end he may never have felt completely a part of either British or Indian society, he would finish his life beloved by both.

  As for the persistence of wild tigers in India, they too are a living testament of sorts. Jim Corbett was among the first to call attention to the plight of the tiger, at a time when many still saw them as nothing more than a menace to be exterminated. His early efforts laid the groundwork for the establishment of India’s first protected tiger reserves, as well as the Project Tiger conservation initiative launched by the Indian government in 1973. His writings and photographs as a naturalist inspired a whole generation of tiger conservationists and provided seminal insights into the stresses environmentally isolated tigers can face—insights that today have led to actions such as the Terai Arc Landscape (TAL) project in Nepal, which is working in collaboration with local populations to re-wild corridors between tiger sanctuaries across the terai, in an effort to create a contiguous and sustainable tiger habitat. It is a daunting project, but one that, if successful, promises to secure the species a long-term future, at least in the region.

  As of the writing of this book, estimates put the population of wild tigers across all of Asia at close to four thousand. It is a precarious number, and the species is still gravely threatened. A growing luxury market in China with a demand for tiger skins and other body parts, further aggravated by the highly controversial practice of captive tiger farming, has taken its toll in neighboring countries, encouraging poaching in Russia, India, and Nepal—in fact, tiger poaching in Indian forests for 2016 surged to its highest level in fifteen years. And in places where poaching is not a primary culprit, simple habitat destruction proves just as deadly. Since 2010, encroaching farmland has caused tigers to all but vanish in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and the rise of palm oil plantations in Sumatra has pushed the subspecies of tigers there to the brink of extinction—something that has already happened in the nearby islands of Java, Bali, and Singapore. According to tiger conservationist Ullas Karanth, apart from a few reserves in India and Thailand, “there are no convincing data to show that populations are recovering in the rest of Southeast Asia or Russia.” With the wild tiger’s range having collapsed by 93 percent of what it once was, and with their total number only a small fraction of what it has been in centuries past, the animal’s future is imperiled, to say the least.

  But there is some good news. Despite the dangers that wild tigers still face, particularly smaller, isolated populations in East Asia, for the first time in more than a century, their total numbers appear to be growing. According to a recent census lauded by the World Wildlife Fund, the global population increased from an estimated 3,200 wild tigers in 2010, to 3,890 wild tigers in 2016, with Jim Corbett’s beloved Indian Bengals leading the charge, making up 70 percent of the aggregate total. There has been some debate as to how accurate the numbers actually are, and considerable concern on the part of some tiger experts who feel that the report paints an overly cheerful picture, even labeling it a “disservice to conservation.” But one aspect even critics of the survey seem to agree on is that in large, well-protected wildlife reserves, in India in particular, local tiger populations are reasonably stable—in some cases even growing—and serve as the best hope for the future of the species. And in the reserves of the Malenadu region, one recent study even suggested that the local tiger population had increased fivefold in the last fifty years, likely making it the largest in the world—a feat made possible by the dedicated conservation efforts of the government and surrounding communities. And even if smaller subspecies populations are under threat elsewhere in Asia, the governments of the countries that harbor them are at the very least aware of the problem and attempting to take countermeasures. At a 2010 summit, a number of these governments came together to pledge their common goal of doubling wild tiger numbers by 2022—a daunting challenge, but one that’s not totally beyond the realm of possibility. And simply stabilizing the endangered subpopulations would be a landmark event. As to whether or not that happens remains to be seen.

  The role of apex predators in a healthy and diverse ecosystem is one that these days is seldom debated. We’ve arrived at the point, it seems, where all can agree that tigers need to exist. The challenge remaining, however, is managing our existence alongside theirs, even in places where tiger populations are relatively secure. Human–tiger conflict continues to pose problems in areas in India and Nepal where the two species overlap, and incentivizing the preservation of tigers in communities that have to live with them every day is a persistent challenge. Yet there is a potential symbiosis of sorts, one that many Tharu and Pahari peoples seem to comprehend intuitively. When the forest is seen not as an obstruction to be cleared, but rather as a crucial resource to be preserved, a convincing incentive becomes apparent. And when it comes to guarding and maintaining the health of a forest, there is no better partner than a wild tiger. Jim Corbett was unique for his time and place in that he understood this all too well. Despite seeing the bodies of c
ountless victims, despite nearly becoming one himself on multiple occasions, he never once harbored ill will toward the predatory cats—if anything, he exhibited profound empathy for their plight. He understood the secret truth about humans and tigers. It is the same truth that was chiseled on Sanskrit tablets all those millennia ago, and even hinted at by William Shakespeare in the epigraph of this book:

  That when it comes to truly behaving as a beast—to killing wantonly and without reason—it is our kind, not theirs, that is the fiercer of the two.

  Epilogue

  Given the extraordinary nature of the Champawat Tiger, and its even more extraordinary alleged human tally, it seemed worthy to include a brief coda for those interested in the available solid documentation surrounding the tiger. As Jim Corbett himself admitted, the total of 436 human victims was an informed estimate based on reported attacks that occurred in its home range, during the time it was assumed to be active. It almost certainly is not a precise number, which is to be expected when it comes to a jungle predator that hunted on a regular basis for nearly a decade, in one of the more remote corners of the Himalayan foothills over a century ago. In actuality, the sum could have been somewhat lower, or even, given the spotty nature of written records at that time, significantly higher. Still, there is ample evidence worth considering when trying to deem the alleged total as being at the very least credible, if not fully verified by hard documentary sources. Granted, the Nepalese portion of the tiger’s spree will likely always be hazy; the boyhood recollections of the elderly Nara Bahadur Bisht regarding the Rupal Man-Eater at the turn of the twentieth century certainly do support the story, even down to Corbett’s claim that it was chased out of Nepal by armed men. And indeed, oral traditions such as this are crucial in trying to understand the tiger’s origins—even today, stories are told in the region, passed down from generation to generation, of the legendary man-eater that once terrorized the population. However, locating printed documentation of Nepalese tiger attacks from that period is next to impossible. Written records of any kind from Rana-era western Nepal are rare, and those that concern tiger attacks, virtually unheard of. In colonial India, though, where the eradication of tigers and human–tiger conflict had both a practical and symbolic importance to government officials, more detailed records were kept—and in the copious stacks of the British Library, some can even be found today.