Why Couldn't This Tiger Be Stopped?

Inside the disturbing psychology of a man-eating tiger.

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Thoughty2 (Arran) is a British YouTuber and gatekeeper of useless facts. Thoughty2 creates mind-blowing factual videos, on the weirdest, wackiest and most interesting topics about space, physics, tech, politics, conspiracy theories, and opinion.
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Writer: Visko Matich
Editor: Theo Dodridge

[ZenFuKid]

I absolutely love listening to you tell this story. I am an old lady in a nursing home, but when I hear you tell this tale, I'm a little girl again at my Mothers or Grandmothers lap. Feeling the cold wind hearing the crunchy snow as the words twist together into a captivating story. Thank you for rekindling this magic for me.
Kim

[zabra]

Theres a man happened to come across a trapped injured tiger in a jungle in Malaysia, he helped it loose, after a few days he found a dead dear on his footsteps presumably brought by the tiger he saved as a gift to him.

[beansbaxter]

Tiger goes from house to house with a picture of Markov...you seen this guy i just want to talk to him ...everybody points to Markov's house...

[josephledux]

When tigers and lions develop a taste for humans it can be a fearsome thing. Even a heavily armed human is at grave disadvantage against something like a tiger. And tigers are not dumb. In the days of colonial India, there came about a particular type of pistol called a howdah pistol. The howdah is the combination platform and saddle that humans sit in atop an Indian elephant to ride it. Europeans would hunt big game, including tigers, from the backs of these elephants. The problem was, if they startled or wounded a tiger, the tiger was smart enough to ignore the elephant and identify the real threat, the humans riding in the howdahs atop them. A tiger could cover fifty meters and be literally in your face in the howdah in mere seconds. So what the howdah pistol was, was generally a cut down elephant rifle, made into a pistol. It had to be so massively powerful that the one, maybe two shots you could get off before you had a face full of tiger, had to have effect. Likewise, in such close quarters a rifle was next to useless. Considering that many of the finer English-made double-rifles developed for hunting huge dangerous game would have cost, even back then, thousands of dollars (they were all to a one hand-made) it had to be some powerful motivation to take a hacksaw to one of them.

But generally speaking, tigers and lions are too big to make a habit out of hunting humans. Sure, they're easy to kill but not much of a meal for cats that big. And every man-eating tiger or lion was in essence a rank amateur at it, succeeding only because humans are so easy to kill.

If you want to take a look at the real experts, you have to look at the leopards. The main difference is that for the truly big cats, they evolved to hunt much larger game. That's the reason for the size and, in the case of lions, the communal hunting strategy. On the other hand, leopards are the cats that evolved to hunt primates. Meaning, for leopards humans, apes, and monkeys have always been on the menu. And once a leopard turns its skill to hunting humans exclusively, they are absolute masters of it.

Look no farther than the so-called Panay leopard in Victorian colonial India. The cat killed and ate some 430 people before it was finally killed. Note that some of those people making up that body count were professional European hunters who specifically went after man-eating leopards. The leopard was finally killed by Jim Corbett, probably the greatest of the hunters of man-eating leopards and tigers. It's very much worth reading in its entirety in Corbett's book _Man-eaters of Kumaon_ . But to give you just a taste, Corbett readily admitted that the cat almost got him, and he survived the experience more from luck than skill.

One of his tactics was to locate the most recent human victim of a man-eater, as both leopards and tigers will return to a kill to feed multiple times. So he found the Panay leopard's latest victim, and then he set up in a tree overlooking the kill, intending to use the dead human as bait to draw the leopard in.

The leopard had other ideas. She was using the human to bait Corbett in, a strategy she had already successfully used in killing other professional hunters. Corbett actually dozed off sitting up in his tree and what woke him up was the realization that not only had he not seen or heard the leopard, but she was already in the tree with him by that point. Not to draw it out, but his survival involved falling out of the tree and nearly breaking his back when he hit the ground, but getting a single -- one -- lucky shot off with his rifle as the leopard leapt down on him from the tree. Just to emphasize things here, Corbett was the only one of several professional leopard-hunters to survive an encounter with the leopard.

When it was all said and done, this leopard who had terrorized an entire region for years, and had killed more people than the latest cholera outbreak was an elderly 75 - pound female leopard. And small as she was, she was death walking. Anyone who's watched wildlife shows about leopards has seen them kill 300 pound antelopes and then _climb up a tree with them_ to stash the kill. Considering that even the largest leopards rarely go over 150 pounds, that's quite an athletic feat.

It could be said that when tigers or lions target people, they do it simply with brute force. Humans are so easy for a tiger to kill it requires almost no skill on the part of the tiger. But leopards? They have the skill in spades. They evolved for it. To see a cat not only go up into a tree after an animal which is better evolved for climbing -- a baboon -- and then kill one, that's some impressive skill. Brute force is of little use in a situation like that. If there's an upside to any of it, you could consider being killed by a leopard to be a more humane way to die than what a tiger would subject you to. With a tiger, you will probably spend your last moments in terror as the tiger charges and grabs you and then bites you through the chest or neck to kill you. On the other hand, leopards have such finesse that you will not even be aware of the existence of the leopard until its eyeteeth are already penetrating the base of your skull, a quick kill that crushes and breaks the spinal cord. Now doesn't that sound like a much nicer way to go than getting your lungs ripped out by a tiger? I know which I'd choose.

[ricememe]

I thought this was an educational video but then:

‘An Amur tiger is like a honey badger on crack, it doesn’t give a shit’

[iguile]

The polite tiger folded clothes after his meal. His mum didn’t raise no mannerless tiger

[eastsiderage]

I learned two things from this:

1. Don't take what isn't yours.
2. Don't start something you can't finish.

[HomeDefender]

“It’s like a honey badger on speed... it doesn’t give a SHIT!”

I’m dying. 😂

[WxMcGee]

So you’re saying there’s a freezing Russian forest where Leopards, tigers, and bears co-exist? No thanks

[slickvic]

*Tiger jumps into boat*
Tiger: I'm the captain now

[erdbeerkeks]

"The best moment for the tiger to attack is when Markov is at his most vulnerable." Who else thought the tiger mauled him while the guy was shitting?

[Tired_Patriot]

Kudos to the animal psychic who let us know the tiger's extremely logical mind, along with it's rationale and deeper motivations for his actions. lol. I was waiting on you to say that while the tiger was waiting outside the cabin to exact his vengeance; the tiger became plagued by existential questions--- "Who AM I?" Is hunting this man going to help anything? Is this TRULY free will? Maybe I can only imagine things that I have no power to choose?" (Asian tiger's have much wisdom) I also enjoyed the narrator letting us know the actions and thoughts 100% of the time past/present/future. Ha!! Just yanking that chain a little! Love your content! You're already formable narrating skills are still improving almost daily! Thank you and keep it up!

[MrTryAnotherOne]

So, the russian hunter essentially messed with the 'John Wick' of wildlife? 🤔

[GTAVictor]

As the saying goes: "I fear no man. But that thing - it scares me."

[marcmelvin]

My cats all listened to this in breathless excitement.

[Nemesislord]

I’ve heard this story in the past but has it ever been verified to be true because I always thought it was strange the level of detail in the story given the only witness was killed

[pedrosian]

Tiger: **IS SHOT OH GOD OW**

Also Tiger:
I will carry hell to your doorstep; I will make you pay
You will reap the hate you've sown on my judgment day
Shredded doors and neatly folded shirts
Smeared in your blood
I will bring your entire hubris crashing down on your door

[edmundblackadder]

I remember watching a Steve Irwin doc on Africa and he comes across an old lion, possibly frail and he said these are the man eaters because they are too old or weak to hunt their regular game.

[mr.nemesis]

Tiger: I can hide anywhere and you will not be able to see me
Thermal imaging: allow me to introduce myself

[Yolandi]

Poaching and other things resulting from human psychology are far more disturbing then an animal taking revenge for attempts on taking its life