What makes a man eater?

     Ever since Jaws hit the screens in 1975, Americans began to believe that they could actually end up as a meal to a predator. But other civilizations have had to deal with this thought for thousands of years. Indians have to worry about the tigers and the wolves, while African natives are exposed to the lions. There are even stories of these animals killing man as a food source. But why do animals do this? By looking at some of these cases maybe we can draw some conclusions about this grim topic.

    We will begin with a case of African lions feeding upon humans, the plot of the 1996 Stephan Hopkins film The Ghost and The Darkness. This true story takes place during the 1898 English colonization of Africa. To help in this colonization, a railroad was to be built from Kenya to Lake Victoria. However, to complete the railroad, a bridge needed to be built at Tsavo. While the building of the bridge was occurring, many Indians (indentured servants of the British) were dying of disease and other ill cases. The bodies of the deceased were not buried very well, if at all. Consequently, there were bodies all along the railroad. This would normally go over rather easily, however disease was also ravaging the zebra population in Tsavo. With no natural food, and bodies everywhere, it is believed that the lions took up to eating the carcasses. This little taste of human flesh made humans a formidable food source. After they depleted the carcasses in an area, they moved onto live humans.

    This is where the mystery begins. Throughout the building of the Tsavo bridge, lions were attacking people. The lions would even sneak into the men's tents and take them when they were sleeping.  The people surrounded their camps with thorny walls that were meant to stop the lions from getting inside. However, the lions basically crawled through the walls and continued to take their prey. Feeling that these lions needed to be killed, the groups began to assign hunters to search and kill these two lions. However, there were many camps along the railroad, so predicting where they would be next was very difficult. Thus, the attacks continued on. After many unsuccessful attempts to kill the lions, the local natives, most of whom did not want the British to be there, began to think of these creature not as lions, but as devils disguised as lions. Thus the names The Ghost and The Darkness were given to them. Eventually, both lions were killed using traps, and the railroad continued to be built. In total, the lions killed nearly 140 men in a nine-month killing spree.

    From this excerpt, we see that there was little natural food for the lions, and human carcasses lined the railroad. The lions began to eat those people and developed a taste for human flesh, as well as associating humans with food. After they had depleted the dead carcasses, they moved on to the only food source left: humans.

     The story above was only a one-time incident, however in Asia, tiger attacks are regular. In the Sundarbans, a wet, marshy jungle, the Bengal tiger is the top predator.  Coincidentally, many people use the Sundarbans as a natural resource. People gather firewood, herbs, and honey in the forest. But, whilst they are looking to the sky for honey, or to the ground for wood, they are an easy attack for a tiger. But why do the tigers do this? They apparently have enough food, so the reason discussed above is not likely. Instead, many scientists find that the rate of attacks increases during the honey season. This could be because there are more people in the Sundarbans at this time looking for honey, or that it is the tiger breeding season, but the answer is most likely a combination of the two. Mother tigers are extremely protective of their young. If a person nears a tiger, even by mistake, chances are that they will not leave with their life. Tigers do not bluff. However, there are many more theories on why this happens. Some people believe that tigers just see humans as another animal that can be eaten. Therefore, if they are hungry, and a human is in the area, they do not hesitate to eat them.

     Whatever their reason, man eaters are everywhere. Scientists do not fully understand why this happens, but one thing is for sure: Although we are the top animal on Earth, we must remember that we are also in the food chain, often in lower places than we would rather be.