Tsavo maneaters
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In March of 1898, the British East Africa Company, led by engineer Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson, began building a railway bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya. During the construction period, many railway workers were killed by two maneless male lions, which dragged men from their tents at night.
The workers built bomas (thorn fences) around the camp to keep the lions out; however, the lions were able to crawl through. Patterson set traps and tried several times to ambush the lions at night from a tree. After repeated unsuccessful endeavors, he finally killed the first lion on December 9, 1898, and the second three weeks later. By that point, the lions had killed nearly 140 workers.
There is speculation that the lions in the region had developed a taste for humans as a result of the slave trade. Another theory suggests that a plague during the period had decimated the lions' usual prey, forcing them to find alternative food sources. Upon examining the skulls and jaws of the lions in the 1990s, some scientists concluded that the two were suffering from abcesses in their gums, and were in too much pain to hunt tougher animals, but this theory has been generally dismissed. In 2000 a proposal was submitted to the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History that the attacks could be related to the lions scavenging the bodies of improperly buried railroad workers. Museum staff made a comprehensive review of Patterson's journals in which he recorded that many burial mounds, made by piling stones over bodies, had been disturbed and the bodies eaten. Based on this evidence it is most likely that the two bachelor males had acquired a taste for humans by scavenging the graves of deceased railroad workers, eventually modifying their feeding behavior to the snatching of sleeping workers from their tents. This explanation is now included in the Museum's display.
After 26 years as Patterson's floor rugs, the lions' skins were sold to the Chicago Field Museum for a sum of $5,000 US. They are currently on display there. It should be noted that the skins on display at the museum do not reflect the full size of the animals after being reassembled.
Patterson's accounts were published in his book The Man-Eaters of Tsavo and later dramatized in the movies Bwana Devil and The Ghost and the Darkness.
Difference from regular The Tsavo man-eaters were unusually maneless male lions, although the display at the Field Museum in Chicago notes that this is not an uncommon trait for lions of that region. They were also approximately 1.5 times larger than the average male lion, similar to cave lions, and it is claimed that Patterson noted that the lions were able to withstand several shots from his rifle.
External links
- [Chicago Field Museum - Tsavo Lion Exhibit]
- [Journal: man-eaters of Tsavo] - Natural History, Nov, 1998 (via FindArticles.com)
- [Man-Eating Lions Not Aberrant, Experts Say] - National Geographic News, Jan 4, 2004
- [The Ghost and the Darkness] at Internet Movie Database
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