Leopards And Man
A human crossing paths with a leopard usually results in serious injuries , but seldom a fatality . The leopard pounces upon the person and proceeds to attack them using it's fangs and the claws on it's forelegs . An attack seldom lasts for more than half a minute and the victim will most probably survive especially if they are in close proximity to medical facilities or medical supplies . However , the injuries to the victim will be considerable . It will look as if the unfortunate wretch was put through a meat grinder.
Here is an associate of mine who had a man eating leopard pounce on him for only five seconds in 2017 near Khulna . The leopard in question was shot off him using a .338 Winchester Magnum 250 grain Remington Core Lokt soft nose bullet .
There are only two kinds of leopards which have a propensity to actually kill a human being . The first is a wounded leopard which is being approached by a human being and the second is the leopard which has turned man eater .
A leopard may turn man eater for a single reason , a combination of reasons or no reason at all . Allow me to elaborate .
A leopard may get injured by a shikari's bullet and turn man eater. In the old days of my youth , it was sadly common practice for local shikaris to wound game , but not actually follow up the wounded creature and finish it off . While wounding any animal without finishing it off is abominable and unsportsmanlike , this actually produced extremely dangerous long term consequences when the wounded animal happened to be a leopard or a Royal Bengal Tiger .
This is because the wounds inflicted on these great cats would leave unable to hunt their ordinary quarry ( Barking Deer or Chital Deer in the case of leopards , Sambhar Deer or Nilgai in the case of Royal Bengal Tigers .) Thus , these leopards and Royal Bengal Tigers turn to man , as their source of food as they view man as a far weaker quarry and thus easy to attack and kill for food. Before hunting was banned in India due to the Wildlife Protection Act - 1972 , most local shikaris used to hunt with the Indian Ordinance Factories .315 Bore sporting rifle , which was built on a cheap Indian clone of the venerable British Lee Enfield action . Not only were these rifles complete trash ( just like everything made by Indian Ordinance Factories ) but their 244 grain soft nose bullets were propelled at velocities under 2000 feet per second . As a result , more often than not , local Indian Shikaris who attempted to hunt animals with these foul rifles , ended up wounding many animals without being able to properly finish them off ( including leopards , the subject of this article ). As a result man eating leopards during my youth were as rancid as a viral disease.
Here is a photograph kindly lent to me by my close friend and fellow forum member , Major Khan of one of those pathetic Indian Ordinance Factories .315 Bore sporting rifles.
A second reason why a leopard becomes a man eater may be if it gets stabbed in the paws or some other part of the body by porcupine quills. Porcupine quills cause severe pain and disturbance to any creature who is stabbed by them ( l would know. As a child , l was unfortunate enough to get stabbed in the palm by a porcupine quill ) . Initially , this may seem to be a very rare occurrence . However , it happens a great deal more frequently than sportsmen care to think. Out of the 81 leopards which I have killed in my life , no less than 33 of them had porcupine quills stuck somewhere in their bodies after l had killed them and ordered my workers to skin them . 33 leopards with porcupine quills stuck in their bodies is by no means , a small number .
A third reason why a leopard may become a man eater is if it gets injured by the tusks of a wild boar . The wild boars of India and Bangladesh often weigh up to 300 pounds and have massive curved tusks which are as sharp as hooks. Very often a leopard may try to attack a boar , but may be in store for a nasty surprise when the boar proves to be a more challenging opponent than the leopard had anticipated and ends up ramming the leopard with it's tusks.
A fourth reason why a leopard may turn into a man eater may be if the leopard gets hurt by sharp tree branches of the thorns of bushes .
A fifth reason may be if a leopard somehow comes across a human corpse and takes a few bites from it , out of morbid curiosity . In India , during my youth an unfortunate reality was that many Hindus of the lowest caste working in factories or rubber plantations were simply not given a proper cremation if they died . Their corpses were simply dumped into rivers . The current of these rivers would often cause the corpses to wash up on the river banks near forests .
Curious leopards ( and Royal Bengal Tigers ) would bite off chunks of these corpses and then become man eaters.
A sixth reason why leopards may become man eaters is if their mothers were man eaters and got the leopards accustomed to the eating of human flesh ,since they were cubs . This reason is actually the most difficult reason to pin point , since there are no blemishes on the leopard's body which might act as a visual aid .
A seventh reason why a leopard may turn into a man eater is if it's natural food ( for example , Barking Deer or Chital Deer ) is no longer available to it . This may either be caused by uncontrolled hunting or deforestation which causes the Barking Deer or Chital Deer to move out of the area.
Finally , a leopard may become a man eater for no apparent reason whatsoever.
What is clear however , is that once a leopard has gotten the taste of human flesh , it will eschew all other forms of meat in favor of the flesh of man . They will often travel miles to find their quarry. Thus , a leopard which has turned man eater must be put down .
The easiest way to determine whether a human victim was killed by a man eating leopard or simply ran afoul of a leopard which attacked them on instinct , is by examining the buttocks of the corpse . A man eating leopard ( or Royal Bengal Tiger ) will ALWAYS and without exception , consume the flesh from the victim's buttocks . A leopard which instinctively kills a human being will only claw and bite their victim from the front side , but will not touch the buttocks .
Here is a man eating leopard killed in 1979 , by a single shot from a .338 Winchester Magnum 250 grain Remington Core Lokt soft nose bullet .
