|
Edward
James Jim Corbett the renowned environmentalist, hunter
as well as a front runner in the tiger conservation.
Early life of Edward James "Jim" Corbett
Edward James Corbett was born of Irish ancestry in the town
of Nainital in the Kumaon of the Himalaya (now in the Indian
state of Uttarakhand). Jim grew up in a large family of 13
children and was the eighth child of Willam Christopher and
Mary Jane Corbett. His parents had moved to Nainital in 1862,
after Christopher Corbett had been appointed postmaster of
the town. In winters, the family used to move to the foothills,
where they owned a cottage named 'Arundel' in Chhoti Haldwani
or 'Corbett's Village' now known as Kaladhungi. After his
father's death, when Jim was 4 years old, his eldest brother
Tom took over as the postmaster of Nainital. From a very young
age, Jim was fascinated by the forests and the wildlife around
his home in Kaladhungi. At a young age he learned to identify
most animals and birds by their calls - owing to his frequent
excursions. Over time he became a good tracker and hunter.
Jim studied at the Oak Openings School, later merged with
Philander Smith College in Nainital. Before he was 19, he
quit school and found employment with the Bengal and North
Western Railway, initially working as a fuel inspector at
Manakpur in the Punjab, and subsequently as a contractor for
the trans-shipment of goods across the Ganges at Mokameh Ghat
in Bihar.
Hunting man-eating Tigers
Between 1907 and 1938, Corbett tracked and shot a documented
19 tigers and 14 leopards — a total of 33 recorded
and documented man-eaters. It is estimated that these big
cats had killed more than 1,200 men, women and children. The
first tiger he killed, the Champawat Tiger in Champawat, was
responsible for 436 documented deaths. He also shot the Panar
Leopard, which allegedly killed 400 people. This leopard's
skull and dentition showed advanced, debilitating gum disease
and tooth decay, such as would limit the animal in killing
wild game and drive it towards man-eating. One of the most
famous was the man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag, which terrorised
the pilgrims to the holy Hindu shrines Kedarnath and Badrinath
for more than ten years.
Other notable man-eaters he killed were the Talla-Des man-eater,
the Mohan man-eater, the Thak man-eater and the Chowgarh tigress.
Analysis of carcasses, skulls and preserved remains show that
most of the man-eaters were suffering from disease or wounds
like porcupine quills embedded deep in the skin or old gunshot
wounds, which never healed. The Thak man-eating tigress, when
skinned by Corbett, revealed two old gunshot wounds; one in
her shoulder had become septic, and as Corbett suggested,
could have been the reason for the tigress to have turned
man-eater. In the foreword of Man Eaters of Kumaon, Corbett
writes,
"The wound that has caused a particular tiger to take to man-eating
might be the result of a carelessly fired shot and failure
to follow up and recover the wounded animal, or be the result
of the tiger having lost his temper while killing a porcupine".
Corbett preferred to hunt alone and on foot when pursuing
dangerous game. He often hunted with a small dog named Robin,
about whom he wrote much in his first book The Man-Eaters
of Kumaon. At times, Corbett took great personal risks to
save the lives of others. Still remembered in India as a great
preservationist, his memories command fond respect in the
areas where he worked.
Retiring in Kenya
After 1947, Corbett and his sister Maggie retired to Nyeri,
Kenya, where he continued to write and sound the alarm about
declining numbers of jungle cats and other wildlife. Jim Corbett
was at the Tree Tops Hotel, a hut built on the branches of
a giant ficus tree, when Princess Elizabeth stayed there on
February 5–6, 1952, at the time of the death of her father,
King George VI. Corbett wrote in the hotel's visitors' register:
For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl
climbed into a tree one day a Princess, and after having what
she described as her most thrilling experience, she climbed
down from the tree the next day a Queen— God bless her. Jim
Corbett died of a heart attack a few days after he finished
writing his sixth book Tree Tops, and was buried at St. Peter's
Anglican Church in Nyeri.
Man-Eaters of Kumaon is a book written by hunter-naturalist
Jim Corbett. It details the experiences Corbett had in the
Kumaon region of India from the 1900s to the 1930s, while
hunting man-eating tigers and leopards. One tiger, for example,
was responsible for over 400 human deaths. Man-Eaters of Kumaon
is the best known of Corbett's books and contains 10 stories
of tracking and shooting man-eaters in the Indian Himalayas
during the early years of the twentieth century. The text
also contains incidental information on flora, fauna and village
life. The book was later turned into a film, Man-Eater of
Kumaon (1948). In 1986, the BBC produced a docudrama titled
Man-Eaters of India with Frederick Treves in the role of Jim
Corbett. An IMAX movie, India: Kingdom of the Tiger, based
on Corbett's books, was made in 2002. A TV movie (based on
Corbett's book, The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag) starring
Jason Flemyng was made in 2005.
 |
 |
 |
| |
| Corbett
National Park Tiger Photo Gallery
Click
Here |
|
|
 |
|
 |
 |
For
Safari / Transport Rates / Hotel Booking
in Jim Corbett National Park
Please Call us at
09536-1182-78
or
09027-1555-78
or Contact
Here
Office Landline Number:
05942- 237476 (10.30 am -6 pm) |
| |
Please Note :- Once confirmed
and booked, the booking amount of Dhikala Canter Safari,
Jeep Safari and Elephant Ride / Safari is Non-refundable.
Please Note :- We
need One Photo Id No and list of all names who
are coming for Safari with Age & Gender. |
Copyright@Nainital Tourism 
|| Nainital
Tours & Package ||
|
