2) Leopard of Panar: 400+ Kills
The Leopard of Panar was responsible for at least 400 human fatalities in the early 20th century. This male leopard lived in the Almora district of Kumaon, India.
The man who brought this creature down was one Jim Corbett. He’d been in the area hunting the Champawat Tiger (see next page) and heard of this leopard’s man hunting prowess.
Jim Corbett attributed this switch to humans as a prey item to dead human bodies being thrown into the jungle during a full on cholera epidemic. This gave the critter a taste for human flesh he hypothesized. To back up the theory, another man-eating leopard dubbed the Rudraprayag Leopard (who killed 125 people) followed a mysterious illness in 1918 that spread through India. So it’s certainly a possibility, so I guess we shouldn’t throw bodies into the jungle anymore then?
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