Questionable tales of tiger attack:

Stories of man-eating tigers tend to be grossly over-exaggerated. Natives tell of jewellery found in the stomachs of tigers.

Claims are often made that these things were consumed with the hands or arms of victims. These tales need to be viewed with some suspicion.

Tigers are very fussy about their food; they do not gulp huge chunks of it, but chew fastidiously and reject anything which is unusual. This cat would not normally swallow such a large lump of meat that jewellery and other items would also be eaten.

Tigers as scapegoats:

Tigers also become good scapegoats for criminals. Police investigations of tiger attacks have sometimes produced evidence that the victim was actually murdered.

In the past, both genuine and false tiger attacks have resulted in random revenge killing. In one 1967 case, 6 tigers were shot over a 10 day period; no one will ever know which tiger, if any, was the one responsible for the attack.

Project Tiger:

The advent of Project Tiger halted the random killing of many tigers. Prior to this time, any tiger, irrespective of age, could be legally shot if it was perceived as a potential man-eater.

Those laws resulted in some ridiculous killings.

At Ranthambhore (A.K.A Rantambhor) National Park a tiger cub recently parted from its mother was killed by police; they claimed it had the potential to become a man-eater due to a foot injury.

The first cub to be seen around the Sikar district for 40 years was peppered with machine gun fire after it entered a village. The entire village had reacted by panicking and climbing onto their houses, while the cub hid terrified in a shed. Once the 'man-eater' had been slaughtered it was paraded through town.

Perhaps the worst thing about the above events are how recent they are; 1971 and late 1975 respectively.

Despite modern laws designed to halt this type of killing, the 'eye for an eye' rule is still followed by some insecure villagers with little faith in authorities. The thought of how much tiger parts are worth on the black market also offers encouragement.

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