Man-Eating Animals

Ep. 157

Man Eaters

 

Tonight we're gonna talk about something everyone loves, something everyone needs, and something both Moody and myself know quite a bit about…that's right platonic love between two males…wait, wrong podcast… actually it's ……FOOOOOOOD!!

 

I know what you're thinking… "Jon, how is that creepy?" Well let me tell you how  it is creepy, it's creepy when humans are on the menu. Today we are talking about man eaters. And no.. Not the Hall and Oates classic. We're talking about animals who put humans on the menu!

 

Throughout time humans have come to be thought of as the top of the food chain. For the most part we are because we have no real natural predators aside from ourselves. But this can change when humans encroach on an animal's territory. There are several reasons animals can attack humans. Not all attacks turn into man eating scenarios but it is important to understand why animals attack.

 

1. Perceived Threat or Fear

Most animals face the threat of predation. To avoid the risk of being injured or killed, animals employ tactics to fool predators – in some cases that’s us, the humans. In the event those strategies fail, their ‘killing’ instinct kicks in and launches attacks.

 

Cape Buffaloes (aka Black Death) is the best example. Cape Buffalo is most aggressive when it has been wounded, or if they detect a threat to the young ones in the herd. Lions could attack humans out of fear to defend themselves when they are approached at close range.

 

2. For Food

When a carnivorous animal attacks a human, wildlife experts often point to the absence of wild prey species. According to a study in the journal Human-Wildlife Interactions, researchers at the Berryman Institute of Utah State University analyzed leopard attacks in and around Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary in India. They concluded that leopards had been forced to kill livestock due to the low population of their natural prey. In certain cases, leopards also become man-eaters.

 

3. Self-Preservation

Sometimes animals attack humans because they have to, or they are forced to. Since the beginning of time, humans have attacked wild animals, caged, or killed them. This left animals with a deep-seated fear of humans, and an increased urge to attack if they feel stressed, anxious, or frightened by our mere presence.

 

4. Protect Their Young

Animals are super protective of their young. The animal kingdom has the most devoted dads like lions, Arctic wolves, gorillas, and golden jackals and moms like elephants who will stop at nothing to rescue their young ones from harm. And that includes driving away or killing humans.

 

5. New Territories

Due to the population explosion, the world needs to build billions of new homes every year. With increased household demands, it’s inevitable that the human race will continue moving into new places. As we do, we become instrumental in deforestation and threaten wildlife. The result – wild animals hunting people who threaten their home.

 

A good example is hippos. They kill more people than any other animal. Most of the hippo attacks are out of fear of losing their territory. The chances of deliberate attacks are high especially when humans get between hippos when they are in the shallows, cut off from the safety of deep water.

 

6. Humans Don’t Usually Put up a Good Fight

Over the years, we humans have effectively removed ourselves from the food chain. This is good in one way because we don’t have to go on hunting parties to get food or fight for territories and survival with other animal species as wildlife.

 

But the downside is that it makes humans easy prey. We’re so unused to being hunted that when things go south, we panic instead of fleeing or fighting and end-up being the prey.

 

7. Mistaken Identity

One of the most common reasons behind shark attacks. They often think we’re food because they can’t really see us very well and differentiate from their natural prey. Surfers are more likely to be in danger zone because the surfboard makes them look like a seal, which is the favorite meal of many shark species.

 

8. Human Ignorance

In most cases, humans get attacked for their own fault. Seeing wildlife up close and taking pictures are fascinating. But there’s a huge difference between keeping a safe distance and approaching them closer for a selfie or video. Unfortunately, many people venturing out for wildlife holidays don’t know that. They simply invade animals’ homes and space and get attacked in return.

So those are the main reasons for animal attacks in general…you know…so mostly just fucking leave wild animals alone. Or learn how to fight a bear or wolf or something!

 

So while most attacks don't involve humans being eaten there are many interesting cases of man eaters out there throughout history. The ones that don't involve eating people…. Well we don't care about those…we are here for the gruesome, gory, man eating details!

 

There are many different types of animals that have been reported as man eaters. We are going to go through some of those and some of the cases involving those animals!

 

First up we're gonna look at the big cats! Lions and tigers and leopards and jaguars and cougars…oh my! All have been reported at times to be man eaters. 

 

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 at least 373,000 people died due to tiger attacks between 1800 and 2009 averaging about 1800 kills per year, the majority of these attacks occurring in India, Nepal and Southeast Asia. 

 

 

For tigers, most commonly they will become man eaters when they are injured or incapacitated making their normal prey to hard to catch.

 

Man-eating tigers have been a recurrent problem in India, especially in Kumaon, Garhwal and the Sundarbans mangrove swamps of Bengal. There, some healthy tigers have been known to hunt humans. However, there have been mentions of man eaters in old Indian literature, so it appears that after the British occupied India and built roads into forests and brought the tradition of 'shikaar', man eaters became a nightmare come alive. Even though tigers usually avoid elephants, they have been known to jump on an elephant's back and severely injure the “mahout” riding on the elephant's back. A mahout is an elephant rider, trainer, or keeper. Mahouts were used since antiquity for both civilian and military use. Kesri Singh mentioned a case when a fatally wounded tiger attacked and killed the hunter who wounded it while the hunter was on the back of an elephant. Most man-eating tigers are eventually captured, shot or poisoned.

 

During war, tigers may acquire a taste for human flesh from the consumption of corpses which were just laying around, unburied, and go on to attack soldiers; this happened during the Vietnam and Second World Wars.

 

There are some pretty well known tigers that were man eaters. 

 

The Champawat Tiger was originally from Nepal where it had managed to kill approximately 200 people starting in 1903 before the Napalese drove her out (without killing her) to the Kumaon region of India in the early 20th century. After the tiger’s arrival, she managed to kill another 234 before an exasperated government called in Jim Corbett.

 

Edward James Corbett was born on July 25, 1875, the son of British colonists in India. He had become a colonel in the British Indian army. Being raised in the valley of Nainital and Kaladhungi region full of natural wonder, he grew up appreciative of wildlife and the need to conserve it. As was typical of early naturalists, he took to hunting and viewed the conservation of wildlife as being more to preserve stock for hunters rather than the preservation of the ecology per se. His skill as a hunter was well-known although this would be the first time he would attempt to take a reputed “man-eater.”

 

The attacks began in the Himalayas of western Nepal in a Rupal village. Despite the stealth of the massive cat, she left a trail of blood that set hunters headlong in pursuit. Yet, the tiger evaded capture and death. Despite the failed first efforts of hunters, the Nepalese Army knew something had to be done. So, they organized a massive patrol, forcing the tiger to abandon her territory. Unfortunately, danger relocated with her.

 

Driven over the river Sarda and the border into India, the move did little to slow her thirst for human flesh. In the Kumaon District, she preyed on countless unprepared villagers. The tigress adjusted her hunting strategy to optimize success while diminishing the risk of containment. By some accounts, she traveled upwards of 20 miles (32 km) per day to make a kill and then avoid capture.

 

She targeted young women and children. They were the ones who most often wandered into the forest to collect firewood, food for livestock, and materials for handicrafts. She only killed during daylight, typical behavior for man-eating tigers. As word got out about the Chapawat tiger’s vicious attacks, daily life drew to a standstill. Hearing the Bengal tigress’s roars from the forest, men refused to leave their huts for work.

 

Just two days before he brought down the “Tiger Queen,” Corbett tracked the beast by following the blood trail of her latest victim. Premka Devi, a 16-year-old girl from the village of Fungar near the city of Champawat. She had disappeared, and villagers and Corbett quickly guessed the girl’s fate.

 

After locating Premka’s remains and confirming her violent death by the tigress, he nearly got ambushed by the big cat herself. Only two hastily fired shots from his rifle managed to scare the cat away. Only then did he recognize the real danger associated with hunting a man-eater. The Bengal tiger felt no fear of humans.

 

The next day, with the help of Chapawat’s tahsildar, Corbett organized a patrol of 300 villagers. Around noon, he finally had the murderer in his sights and made the kill. Life could return to normal. Because of the legacy he gained by saving the residents of Chapawat and its surrounding villages from the big cat, he went on to pursue and kill about a dozen more well-documented man-eaters.

 

When the tiger was finally brought down it was noted that both the top and bottom canines on her right side were broken, the top one on half, and the bottom one broken to the jaw bone. The thought is that this is the thing that caused her to turn into a man eater. She couldn't kill and eat her normal prey, so she went after easier prey in humans. Pussy ass humans.

 

Her final body count is recorded at around 436 people…holy shit!

 

Tiger of Segur

The Tiger of Segur was a young man-eating male Bengal tiger. Though originating in the District of Malabar-Wynaad below the south-western face of the Blue Mountains, the tiger would later shift its hunting grounds to Gudalur and between Segur and Anaikutty. It was killed by Kenneth Anderson, who would later note that the tiger had a disability preventing it from hunting its natural prey. His body count was 5.

 

The Tigers of Chowgarh were a pair of man-eating Bengal tigers, consisting of an old tigress and her sub-adult cub, which for over a five-year period killed a reported 64 people in eastern Kumaon over an area spanning 1,500 square miles (3,900 km2). The tigress was attacking humans initially alone, but later she was assisted by her sub-adult cub. The figures however are uncertain, as the natives of the areas the tigers frequented claimed double that number, and they do not take into account victims who survived direct attacks but died subsequently. Both tigers were killed by.... Good ol Jim Corbett.

 

Most recently, the Tigers of Bardia,

In 2021, four tigers killed ten people and injured several others in Bardia National Park of Nepal. Three of the tigers were captured and transferred to rescue centers. One of the tigers escaped from its cage and is yet to be captured.

 

The tigers were identified and captured from Gaida Machan on 4 April, from Khata on 18 March and from Geruwa on 17 March. The tigers were found with broken canine teeth, possibly due to fighting between two males. After the capture, one of the tigers escaped from the iron cage and went back to the forest in the Banke district. Two were housed at the rescue facility in Bardia National Park in Thakurdwara and Rambapur. One was transferred to the Central Zoo in Jawalakhel, Kathmandu.

How about lions…y'all like lions…maybe not after hearing some of this shit.

 

Man-eating lions have been recorded to actively enter human villages at night as well as during the day to acquire prey. This greater assertiveness usually makes man-eating lions easier to dispatch than tigers. Lions typically become man-eaters for the same reasons as tigers: starvation, old age and illness, though as with tigers, some man-eaters were reportedly in perfect health.

 

The most famous man eating lions would probably be the Tsavo man eaters. The story of the Tsavo lions begins in March 1898, when a team of Indian workers led by British Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson arrived in Kenya to build a bridge over the Tsavo River, as part of the Kenya-Uganda Railway project. The project, it seems, was doomed from the start. As Bruce Patterson (no relation) writes in his book "The Lions of Tsavo," "Few of the men at the railhead knew that the name itself was a warning. Tsavo means 'place of slaughter'" in the local language. That actually referred to killings by the Maasai people, who attacked weaker tribes and took no prisoners, but it was still a bad omen.

 

Lt. Col. Patterson and company had only just arrived when they noticed that one of their men, a porter, had gone missing. A search quickly uncovered his mutilated body. Patterson, fearing that a lion had killed his employee, set out the next day to find the beast. Instead he stumbled upon other corpses, all men who had disappeared from previous expeditions.

 

Almost immediately, a second of Patterson's men disappeared. By April, the count had grown to 17. And this was just the beginning. The killings continued for months as the lions circumvented every fence, barrier and trap erected to keep them out. Hundreds of workers fled the site, putting a stop to bridge construction. Those who remained lived in fear of the night.

 

The violence didn't end until December, when Patterson finally stalked and killed the two lions that he blamed for the killings. It wasn't an easy hunt. The first lion fell on Dec. 9, but it took Patterson nearly three more weeks to deal with the second. By then, Patterson claimed, the lions had killed a total of 135 people from his crew. (The Ugandan Railway Company downplayed the claim, putting the death toll at just 28.)

 

But that wasn't the end of the story. Bruce Patterson, a Field Museum zoologist and curator, spent years studying the lions, as did others. Chemical tests of their hair keratin and bone collagen confirmed that they had eaten human flesh in the few months before they were shot. But the tests revealed something else: one of the lions had eaten 11 people. The other had eaten 24. That put the total at just 35 deaths, far lower than the 135 claimed by Lt. Col. Patterson.

 

I mean…35…135…still fucking crazy

 

Lions' proclivity for man-eating has been systematically examined. American and Tanzanian scientists report that man-eating behavior in rural areas of Tanzania increased greatly from 1990 to 2005. At least 563 villagers were attacked and many eaten over this period. The incidents occurred near Selous National Park in Rufiji District and in Lindi Province near the Mozambican border. While the expansion of villages into bush country is one concern, the authors argue conservation policy must mitigate the danger because in this case, conservation contributes directly to human deaths. Cases in Lindi in which lions seize humans from the centers of substantial villages have been documented. Another study of 1,000 people attacked by lions in southern Tanzania between 1988 and 2009 found that the weeks following the full moon, when there was less moonlight, were a strong indicator of increased night-time attacks on people.

 

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 60 kilometres per hour (37 mph), leap more than 6 metres (20 ft) horizontally and 3 metres (9.8 ft) 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.

 

The Leopard of ​Panar killed over 400 people during the early 20th century, and is one of the most prolific man-eaters in recorded history, second only to the Great Champawat Tigress who lived at the same time. 

 

The Panar Man-eater was a male Leopard that lived in Northern India. The big cat first began to consume human flesh from the numerous diseased corpses that littered the jungle, as a result of a Cholera plague. When the Cholera pandemic ended, and the corpses ceased, he began to hunt humans. Of this Jim Corbett (this guy again) 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"

 

​For many years the villagers attempted to hunt and trap the demon cat, to no avail. Panars man-eating Leopard could recognize the traps and was a master of camouflage and evasion. He was rarely seen until the moment he struck, sometimes even taking people right from inside their homes, in front of their families.

 

After trekking through hills, crossing a flooded river with no bridges, and sleeping on open ground in the heart of the Leopards territory Corbett reached the village. The most recent attacks had occurred here, four men had just been killed.  

 

​Corbett staked out two goats to lure the Panar Leopard and laid in wait. The great cat took the first goat and vanished. Then three days later Corbett had the second goat tied about 30 yards from a tree and he laid in wait, all day, and then into the night. The Leopard finally came, he could only make out the sounds of the Leopard killing his prey and a faint white blur of the goats fur. By hearing alone he fired his shotgun and wounded the great cat,  but again it escaped.

 

Corbett then lined his men up behind him with torches. He made them each promise not to run, so he would have enough torch light to target the wounded cat. They then walked out across the field toward the brush at the far side. 

There, suddenly the legendary man-eater lunged from the brush, and charged the legendary hunter. All of the men turned and ran instantly, though luckily one dropped his torch in flight giving Corbett just enough light to shoot the Leopard in the chest, ending its reign of terror. Corbett was simply a fucking bad ass. Period. In a world full of scared villagers, be a Corbett.

 

Ok so we've talked about cats…how about dogs. 

 

Wolves are generally not known to be man eaters. Contrasted to other carnivorous mammals known to attack humans for food, the frequency with which wolves have been recorded to kill people is rather low, indicating that, though potentially dangerous, wolves are among the least threatening for their size and predatory potential. In the rare cases in which man-eating wolf attacks occur, the majority of victims are children. We did find a couple accounts of man eating wolves though. 

 

Wolf of Gysinge (Hello, Sweden)

A historical account of the attacks says that the wolf involved in the attacks was captured as a wolf pup and kept as a pet for several years starting in 1817. While that may seem like the beginning of a sweet made-for-TV movie, it was almost certainly a deadly mistake. When wolves are kept as pets, the animals lose their instinctual fear of humans.

 

the Wolf of Gysinge became tired of being cooped up and broke out. We don’t know how long it took for the Wolf of Gysinge to start hunting humans, but we know that it became the world’s deadliest wolf.

 

The Wolf of Gysinge was responsible for 31 attacks against human beings. The wolf killed 12 people and injured 19 others. Most of the victims were under the age of 12. One 19-year-old woman was killed, and one 18-year-old man was injured during the attacks.

 

Most of the 12 humans killed during this attack were at least partially eaten by the wolf by the time they were discovered.

 

The attacks occurred between December 30, 1820, and March 27, 1821. That averages out to one attack every 3 days over 3 months.

 

The Wolves of Ashta were a pack of 6 man-eating Indian wolves which between the last quarter of 1985 to January 1986, killed 17 children in Ashta, Madhya Pradesh, a town in the Sehore district. The pack consisted of two adult males, one adult female, one subadult female and two pups. Initially thought to be a lone animal, the fear caused by the wolves had serious repercussions on the life of the villagers within their hunting range. Farmers became too frightened to leave their huts, leaving crops out of cultivation, and several parents prohibited their children from attending school, for fear that the man-eaters would catch them on the way. So great was their fear, that some village elders doubted the man-eaters were truly wolves at all, but Shaitans, which of you are truly a fan of the show, you'll remember us talking about shaitan in the djinn episode, episode 118 from back in August of 2021 . With the exception of the pups, which were adopted by Pardhi tribesmen, all of the wolves were killed by hunters and forest officials.

 

The wolves of Perigord were a pack of man-eating wolves that attacked the citizens of the northwestern area of Perigord.  The incident was recorded in February of 1766.  Based on the accounts of the authority, at least 18 people were killed during the attack of the wolves before they were finally killed.

 

Louis XV (15th) offered a reward to those who would manage to kill the wolves.  He also offered them prize money and exemption on the military service of their children if they would be able to save a victim.  An old man around 60-years of age and with a billhook, which is a large machete type knife with a hooked blade at the end, as his weapon was able to save a marksman and his friends after they were attacked by the rampaging wolves when their armaments have been depleted.

 

According to the records, citizens that were named Sieurs de Fayard killed three of them and a pro-hunter managed to kill the 4th wolf.  One general hunted the wolves and managed to kill 2 of them.  When one of the wolves was examined they noticed that the wolf had two rows of teeth on its jaw, a one of a kind wolf that they concluded to be a hybrid.

 

Here’s one for our Australian listeners.

Attacks on humans by dingoes are rare, with only two recorded fatalities in Australia. Dingoes are normally shy of humans and avoid encounters with them. The most famous record of a dingo attack was the 1980 disappearance of nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain. Yes…the “dingo ate my baby” case. We're not gonna go into that much here but…we'll probably do a bonus on it as it's been brought up for us to cover.

 

Almost all known predatory coyote attacks on humans have failed. To date, other than the Kelly Keen coyote attack and the Taylor Mitchell coyote attack, all known victims have survived by fighting, fleeing, or being rescued, and only in the latter case was the victim partially eaten, although that case occurred in Nova Scotia where the local animals are eastern coyotes or coywolves. A coywolf is a hybrid of coyotes, grey wolves, and eastern wolves.

 

Now I know what you're thinking…man it's crazy that that many animals eat humans…well, strap in passengers, cus there's more.

 

How about…well I dunno…polar bears! Polar bears, particularly young and undernourished ones, will hunt people for food. Truly man-eating bear attacks are uncommon, but are known to occur when the animals are diseased or natural prey is scarce, often leading them to attack and eat anything they are able to kill. Scott Haugen learned to hunt elk, cougar and black bear just beyond his hometown of Walterville, Oregon., but nothing he had experienced compared with the situation he faced when he shot a polar bear after it had dragged a man away and eaten part of him.

 

Haugen, a 1988 University of Oregon graduate, found the body of a man killed by a polar bear in Point Lay, a small whaling village in northern Alaska.

 

When he pulled the trigger on his 30.06 rifle, Haugen was standing near the body of a man who was “three-fourths eaten.” It was dark and 42 degrees below zero, and the polar bear was less than 100 yards away, moving slowly toward him.

Polar bears can outrun a man and they can give a snowmobile a good chase. Oh, and they can literally take a human’s head off with one swipe of its huge paws.

 

The dead man, identified as Carl Stalker, 28, had been walking with his girlfriend when they were chased into the village of 150 by the bear. The friend escaped into a house. Stalker was killed “literally right in the middle of the town,” Haugen said.

 

All that remained in the road where the attack took place were blood and bits of human hair, Haugen said. While villagers on snowmobiles began searching a wide area, Haugen was told by the officer to take his rifle and follow the blood trail.

He tracked the bear’s progress about 100 yards down an embankment toward the lagoon. “I shined a light down there and I could see the snow was just saturated with blood.” A snowmobiler drove up, and in the headlights Haugen discovered what was left of Stalker.

He couldn’t see the bear, however.

Then, as the lights of another snowmobile reflected off the lake, Haugen saw the hunkered form of the polar bear.

“When they hunt, they hunch over and slide along the ice” to hide the black area of their eyes and snout, Haugen said.

“It wasn’t being aggressive toward us, but I wasn’t going to wait,” he said. “I ended up shooting it right there.”

 

Crazy shit

 

Brown bears are known to sometimes hunt hikers and campers for food in North America. For example, Lance Crosby, 63, of Billings, Montana, was hiking alone and without bear spray in Yellowstone National Park in August 2015 when he was attacked by a 259-pound grizzly bear. The park rules say people should hike in groups and always carry bear spray - a form of pepper spray that is used to deter aggressive bears. His body was found in the Lake Village section of the park in northwest Wyoming. Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were killed and almost fully eaten by a 28-year-old brown bear on October 5, 2003. The bear's stomach was later found to contain human remains and clothing. In July 2008, dozens of starving brown bears killed two geologists working at a salmon hatchery in Kamchatka.  After the partially eaten remains of the two workers were discovered, authorities responded by dispatching hunters to cull or disperse the bears.

 

Anything else .. Sure is…like…I dunno…pigs?

 

Although not true carnivores, pigs are competent predators and can kill and eat helpless humans unable to escape them. 

Terry Vance Garner, 69, went to feed his animals one day on his farm by the coast, but never returned.

 

His dentures and pieces of his body were found by a family member in the pig enclosure, but the rest of his remains had been consumed.

 

The Coos County Oregon district attorney's office said that one of the animals had previously bitten Garner.

 

Reduced to dentures and "pieces"... Damn.

 

In 2019, a Russian woman fell into an epileptic emergency while feeding her hogs. She was eaten alive, and her remains were found in the pen.

 

In 2015, a Romanian farmer died of blood loss after being attacked by his hogs. And a year prior, a 2-year-old toddler from China was eaten when he wandered into a hog enclosure.

 

In 2013, a mob boss was still alive when he was fed to hogs by a rival family. In fact, it’s been whispered for years that the Mafia uses hogs to help them dispose of bodies.

 

A pig will “eat meat if they are able to come by it. Fact of the matter is, pigs can eat almost anything they can chew. (They’ve even been known to eat pork if they find it.)” Cannibalistic pigs. Yup.

 

However,  pigs cannot chew the larger bones of the human body, but they will break them into smaller bits to make them more manageable. Human hair and teeth, on the other hand (or hoof), are not digestible to hogs and will get left behind.

 

But, it should be a simple matter to shave your victims’ heads and pull out their teeth before chow time, right?

 

So far…all mammals, right? You’re probably thinking, “any reptiles?…well fuck yes we have reptiles!

 

The saltwater and Nile crocodiles are responsible for more attacks and more deaths than any other wild predator that attacks humans for food. 

 

Each year, hundreds of deadly attacks are attributed to the Nile crocodile within sub-Saharan Africa. Because many relatively healthy populations of Nile crocodiles occur in East Africa, their proximity to people living in poverty and/or without infrastructure has made it likely that the Nile crocodile is responsible for more attacks on humans than all other species combined. In Australia, crocodiles have also been responsible for several deaths in the tropical north of the country. The mugger crocodile is another man-eater that kills many people in Asia each year, although not to the same level as the saltwater and Nile crocodiles. All crocodile species are also dangerous to humans, but most do not actively prey on them. 

 

Gustave is a large male Nile crocodile from Burundi. He is notorious for being a man-eater, and is rumored to have killed as many as 300 people from the banks of the Ruzizi River and the northern shores of Lake Tanganyika.  In order to capture his human prey, Gustave uses his tail and kills them by suffocation. He was allegedly responsible for the death of an employee of the Russian embassy while she was bathing in the water.

 

Gustave’s fame only grew and in 2010, French hunter Patrice Faye tried to capture the reptile using a large crocodile trap – which clearly did not work. In a note to the BBC, Faye alleges that Gustave is very smart and his survival instinct leaves nothing to be desired.

 

For two years Faye studied the possibilities, even creating a documentary called Capturing the Killer Croc, which aired in 2014 and recorded Gustave’s several capture attempts.

 

In the first attempt, a giant cage that weighed a ton and was about 9 meters long was used. Different baits were placed inside the cage, but none of them attracted Gustave or any other creature. The scientists installed three giant traps on strategic river banks to increase their chances of capture; then, only smaller crocodiles were captured by the traps.

 

In its last week before having to leave the country, the team put a live goat in the cage and, one night, the camera broke due to a storm. The next morning the cage was found partially submerged and the goat wasn’t there. It was not clear what happened that night. 

 

All attempts failed to capture Gustave. He's never been brought to justice. An article rumored he had over 300 victims!

 

American alligators rarely prey upon humans. Even so, there have been several notable instances of alligators opportunistically attacking humans, especially the careless, small children, and elderly. 

 

A 12ft-long, 504lb alligator believed to have attacked and killed a 71-year-old Louisiana man in Hurricane Ida’s aftermath, was captured with what appeared to be human remains in its stomach, local authorities said.

 

Timothy Satterlee Sr vanished on 30 August, while checking on the contents of a shed at his home in Slidell, Louisiana, as flood waters engulfed the area.

 

After his wife heard a splash, she discovered her husband being gripped in a “death roll” by a huge alligator.

 

By the time she could intervene, the beast had already ripped off Satterlee’s arm and rendered him unconscious.

 

She pulled him to the steps of their home and — with neither her phone nor 911 working — in a desperate move she climbed into a small boat in search of help.

 

But when deputies finally arrived, Satterlee wasn’t there any more.

 

“She just never thought in her wildest nightmares that she would get back and he’d be gone,” said Lance Vitter, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office.

 

Satterlee’s disappearance set off a two-week search that ended  after an alligator was caught in a trap near where Satterlee had gone missing, the St Tammany Parish Sheriff’s Office said.

 

Agents euthanized and cut open the alligator, where they discovered “the upper parts of a human body”, according to Vitter.

 

“Once the alligator was searched, it was discovered to have what appears to be human remains inside its stomach,” the sheriff’s office said.

 

Oof

 

Now everyone's favorite…snakes! 

 

Only very few species of snakes are physically capable of swallowing an adult human. Although quite a few claims have been made about giant snakes swallowing adult humans, only a limited number have been confirmed. A large constricting snake may constrict or swallow an infant or a small child, a threat that is legitimate and empirically proven. Cases of python attacks on children have been recorded for the green anaconda, the African rock python, and the Burmese python. 

 

Wa Tiba, 54, went missing while checking on her vegetable garden on Muna island in Sulawesi province. A huge search was mounted by local people.

 

Her sandals and machete were found a day later - a giant python with a bloated belly was lying about 30m away.

 

"Residents were suspicious the snake swallowed the victim, so they killed it, then carried it out of the garden," local police chief Hamka told news outlet AFP.

 

"The snake's belly was cut open, slowly revealing the man's clothed body.

 

Multiple cases are documented of medium-sized (3 m [9.8 ft] to 4 m [ft]) captive Burmese pythons constricting and killing humans, including several non intoxicated, healthy adult men, one of whom was a "student" zookeeper. In the zookeeper case, the python was attempting to swallow the zookeeper's head when other keepers intervened. In addition, at least one Burmese python as small as 2.7 m (8.9 ft) constricted and killed an intoxicated adult.

 

How about fish?! Sounds like a good place to do some quick hitters!

 

Contrary to popular belief, only a limited number of shark species are known to pose a serious threat to humans. The species that are most dangerous can be indiscriminate and will take any potential meal they happen to come across (as an oceanic whitetip might eat a person floating in the water after a shipwreck), or may bite out of curiosity or mistaken identity (as with a great white shark attacking a human on a surfboard possibly because it resembles its favored prey, a seal).

Of more than 568 shark species, only four have been involved in a significant number of fatal unprovoked attacks on humans: the great white shark, tiger shark, bull shark, and the oceanic whitetip shark. These sharks, being large, powerful predators, may sometimes attack and kill humans; it is worth noting that they have all been filmed in open water by unprotected divers.

 

So, I found a pretty cool yet messed up story.

On July 1, 1916, Charles Vansant was maimed in the water in front of a hotel in Beach Haven, New Jersey. He died as a result of his wounds. Less than a week later, Charles Bruder perished in Spring Lake, just 50 miles up the Jersey Shore. His legless body was pulled from the water. 

Then 10-year-old Lester Stilwell was bitten and dragged under the water while playing with his friends in Matawan Creek. A 24-year-old local, Watson Stanley Fisher, hurried into the creek to look for Stilwell's body, but he, too, was mauled by the shark and eventually died. 

That same day, just a mile downstream, 14-year-old Joseph Dunn was also bitten. He survived the attack.

These third and fourth deaths thrust New Jersey's shark problem into the national spotlight, and marked a turning point in America's collective psyche, according to Burgess: Sharks were no longer just interesting marine animals, they could be killers.

President Woodrow Wilson allotted federal aid to "drive away all the ferocious man-eating sharks which have been making prey of bathers," the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on July 14, 1916. 

The Philadelphia Evening Ledger said on July 15 that "the shark menace was formally discussed the day before at a Cabinet meeting in Washington." The newspaper reported that a ship would be dispatched to cooperate with the Coast Guard, and "active warfare against sharks instituted."

Meanwhile, New Jersey fishermen, Coast Guard members, and townspeople threw sticks of dynamite into Matawan Creek and used wire nets to try to capture the offending animal.

Local fishermen ended up catching various shark suspects, including a 215-pound, 9.5-foot-long female shark with 12 babies in her belly. 

Finally, New Yorker Michael Schleisser caught and killed an 8-foot, 325-pound great white just a few miles from where Stilwell and Fisher were attacked. The creature had 15 pounds of human remains in its stomach. 

This story is what is said to be the inspiration for the movie, JAWS!

Piranhas

 

Attacks by piranhas resulting in deaths have occurred in the Amazon basin. In 2011, a drunk 18-year-old man was attacked and killed in Rosario del Yata, Bolivia. In 2012, a five-year-old Brazilian girl was attacked and killed by a shoal of P. nattereri. Some Brazilian rivers have warning signs about lethal piranhas.

 

Catfish

 

Reports have been made of goonch catfish eating humans in the Kali River in India. The Kali River goonch attacks were a series of fatal attacks on humans believed to be perpetrated by a goonch weighing 90 kilograms (200 lb) in three villages on the banks of the Kali River in India and Nepal, between 1998 and 2007. The first attack occurred in April 1998, when at 13:00, 17-year-old Dil Bahadur, while swimming in the river, was dragged underwater in front of his girlfriend and several eyewitnesses. No remains were found, even after a three-day search spanning 5 kilometers (3.11 miles). Three months later, at Dharma Ghat, a young boy was pulled underwater in front of his father, who watched helplessly. No corpse was ever found. The final attack occurred in 2007 when an 18-year-old Nepalese man disappeared in the river, dragged down by something described as a mud-colored "water pig". 

 

Additionally there have been reports of Wels catfish killing and eating humans in Europe. Large predatory catfish such as the Redtail catfish and Piraiba are thought to have contributed to the loss of life when the Sobral Santos II ferry sank in the Amazon River in 1981.

 

Groupers

 

The Giant grouper is one of the largest species of bony fish in the world, reaching a maximum length of 3 meters and weight of 600 kilograms.  There have been cases of this species attacking and possibly consuming humans, along with the closely-related Atlantic goliath grouper.

 

Lizards

 

Large Komodo dragons are the only known lizard species to occasionally attack and consume humans. Because they live on remote islands, attacks are infrequent and may go unreported. Despite their large size, attacks on people are often unsuccessful and the victims manage to escape with severe wounds.

 

Well there you have it folks…man eating animals! It seems after this…we are only at the top of the food chain because certain animals allow us to be there. 

 

In closing, here are the man-eater body counts

Individual man-eater death tolls include:

 

436 — Champawat tiger (Nepal/India)

400 — Leopard of Panar (Northern India)

300+ — Gustave (crocodile) (Burundi), rumoured

150 — Leopard of the Central Provinces of India

135 — Tsavo's man-eating lions (Kenya)

125+ — Leopard of Rudraprayag (India)

113 — Beast of Gévaudan (France)

50+ — Tigers of Chowgarh (India)

42 — Leopard of Gummalapur (India)

40 — Wolves of Paris (France)

 

Movies:

 

https://screenrant.com/best-killer-animal-movies/