Wild animals can kill, ending the lives of around 1 million people every year globally. Mosquito-carried diseases account for the vast majority of these deaths, but occasionally humans receive a chilling reminder of nature's deadly power. While humans sit at the top of the food chain, stripped of man-made weapons and face to face with a tiger, there is only one winner.
The Champawat Tiger's Reign of Terror
The Champawat Tiger was a single beast responsible for the deaths of 436 people across two countries, India and Nepal. Due to an injury sustained to her jaw during a hunt in the 1890s, the tiger could not hunt fast-moving prey such as deer, so it turned its attention to humans.
Over the next decade, the tiger presided over a bloodthirsty reign of terror in the Nepalese town of Champawat, killing over 200 people before being driven across the border to India. The beast killed just as many people in India as it did in Nepal. Eventually, it was brought down by English hunter Jim Corbett.
USS Indianapolis Shark Swarm
In the closing days of World War II, the heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by Japanese submarine I-58. The ship sank so quickly that no SOS signal could be sent, leaving nearly 900 sailors adrift for days in shark-infested waters of the mid-Pacific.
The explosions left the water thick with oil, debris, and the blood of injured and deceased sailors, drawing hundreds of sharks, which ate around 150 of the helpless men. Between the sharks and stormy weather, nearly 600 men lost their lives in what was the second-largest US naval disaster after the Pearl Harbour attack in December 1941.
Cougar Attack in Colorado
In 1991, in Idaho Springs, Colorado, 18-year-old high school athlete Scott Lancaster went jogging during a school break and never came back. Two days later, would-be rescuers found the teen in a shallow grave, noting large paw prints criss-crossing his face. Scott's scalp was half-peeled, and his internal organs had been removed; the young man had been killed and half-eaten by a mountain lion.
The track star's death remains the most shocking occurrence of a cougar attacking and killing a human, and it rocked the small community, which lost one of its most talented sporting youths.
The Great Emu War of 1932
In the 1930s, thousands of emus invaded Australian farmland, and the agriculturists had no other option than to call in the army. In 1932, specialist military forces, recently back from World War I, loaded up on machine guns and set off to give it to the birds. However, they got their butts handed to them.
The Great Emu War of 1932 is the only war humans have ever waged on animals, and they lost. The 6'0" feathery foes could dodge bullets, and their hides deflected machine gun fire. The Australian fighters did the only sensible thing and pulled out of the battle.
Man-Eaters of Tsavo and Tilikum the Orca
In 1898, two maneless lions, nicknamed the man-eaters of Tsavo, began terrorising crews building the Kenya-Uganda Railway. Initially, it was thought that over 100 people were hunted and killed by the pair over a nine-month period, but revised predictions put the total death toll at 35. Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson, in the British Army, eventually shot and killed the two creatures, then wrote a book about the ordeal. The big cats' bodies have been housed at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago since 1925.
Tilikum, the killer whale, focal point of the documentary Blackfish, was responsible for the deaths of three trainers. The most highly publicised case was the death of his second trainer, Dawn Brancheau, who the beast pulled into the pool at SeaWorld Orlando in 2010. An autopsy report stated Brancheau drowned but also suffered severe trauma, including multiple fractures. In 1999, while at Sealand of the Pacific in Canada, Tilikum and two other orcas grabbed trainer Keltie Byrne into the pool after she slipped, resulting in her drowning. In 1991, a part-time trainer at Sealand of the Pacific in Canada fell into the pool and was pulled underwater by Tilikum and two other orcas.
