A Tribute To Jim Corbett

We've all heard stories. Stories of beasts and bullets, of war and danger. Such stories are often stretched beyond reality and after every retelling; one can swear that there were twice as many Germans, or that there were two leopards at no more than 50 feet away instead of one at 200 yards. But how many men can honestly boast that he had saved entire villages from ferocious man-eating beasts? How many men can claim that he had saved hundreds of lives by killing 19 tigers and 14 leopards?
Jim Corbett was born on July 25, 1875 as the eighth child of Christopher and Mary Jane Corbett. From a very young age, young Jim held an affinity towards the forest and all of its inhabitants. His frequent treks into the forest soon gave him the ability to identify most birds and beasts simply by their calls. Though he had the skills of a hunter, he began work as a fuel inspector at Manakpur and later a shipping contractor in Bihar.

Corbett was no more than an enthusiast in his early life; he focused solely on small game and fishing. But soon, as the death toll grew due to frequent attacks by man-eaters, he turned his focus to tigers and leopards. However, because of his deep admiration of such predators, he promised to only shoot tigers and leopards that turned on man or cattle. He killed his first man-eating tiger at the age of 32. The Champawat Tiger in Champawat was documented to have killed 436 men and women. Over 31 years starting in 1907, he killed 32 other man eaters that had in total, killed over 1500 men and women.

His books, all personal narratives of his spine chilling hunts, recount near impossible treks through dangerous forests, thrilling stories of killing tigers that were only a few feet away from him in pitch black, and other such tales. His other notable successes were the Panar Leopard, which killed over 400, the Chowgarh tigress, and the Thak man-eater.
Corbett was in every sense of the term, a hero. He risked his life countless times to preserve the lives of hundreds of others. He did not kill for pleasure (in fact in his first book, "The Man-Eaters of Kumaon", he tells of an incidence where he had accidentally shot the wrong tiger, and how he deeply regretted it). Instead, he killed tigers and leopards to protect humans.
Throughout his later life he fought to create a nature preserve in India that would protect all of the native inhabitants, bird and beast, from poachers and entrepreneurs. He moved to Kenya in the later years of life, and he died there from a heart attack at the age of 79. After his death the preserve was named after him. Even so many years after his death, he is still remembered fondly for his courage, honor, and respect for life.