Top 10 Worst Man Eaters In History..!
Most large predatory animals can, and will, see humans as suitable
prey, under the right circumstances; however, true “man eaters”, that
is, individual animals that prefer human flesh over any other food, are
very rare. This list is a selection of some of the worst cases of man
eaters recorded in history.
We start this list with the worst case of man-eating lions in
History. It was not a single man eater, but an entire pride that
preferred human flesh over any other kind of food. It happened in 1932,
in Tanzania near the town of Njombe. A large pride of lions went into a
particularly brutal killing spree. Legend has it that the lions were
being controlled by the witch doctor of a local tribe, named Matamula
Mangera, who sent them into rampage as revenge against his own people
after being deposed of his post. The tribesmen were so terrified of the
man-eating lions that they wouldn’t even dare speaking of them,
believing that a simple mention would cause them to appear. They begged
to the tribe chief to restore the witch doctor to his post, but he
refused. The lions kept attacking and, eventually, took over 1,500
human lives (some say over 2000); the worst lion attack in History, and
one of the worst cases of animal attacks ever recorded. Eventually,
George Rushby, a famed hunter, decided to put an end to the attacks. He
killed 15 lions, and the rest of the pride eventually abandoned the
area, finally ending the nightmare. But, of course, the locals were
convinced that the lions left only because the tribe’s chief finally
agreed to restore Matamula Mangera to his old job.
Two Toed Tom is a rather obscure man-eater, and today it is hard to
know which parts of his story are real, and which ones are myth. This
huge male American alligator was said to roam the swamps in the border
of Alabama and Florida during the 20s. He had lost all but two of the
toes in his left “hand”, and left very recognizable tracks on the mud,
so he was nicknamed “Two Toed Tom” by the local people. He was said to
have lost his toes in an iron trap.
He measured four and a half meters long, and people claimed he was
no normal gator, but a demon sent from Hell to terrorize them. Tom made
himself infamous by devouring scores of cows, mules and, of course,
humans, particularly women (snatched as they washed clothes in the
water). Due to his frequent attacks, many farmers tried to kill Tom,
but bullets were said to have little effect on him and all attempts on
his life failed. One farmer even tried to kill him using dynamite; the
farmer had been chasing Tom for twenty years, unsuccessfully, so he
decided to throw fifteen dynamite-filled buckets into the pond were Tom
was supposed to live, and finally get rid of the problem once and for
all.
The explosion killed everything in the pond, but not Tom. Moments
after the explosion, the farmer and his son heard a horrible scream and
splashing sounds coming from a nearby pond. They rushed to the place and
saw Tom’s bright eyes for a moment before he disappeared under the
surface. The screams were later explained when the half eaten remains
of the farmer’s young daughter appeared in the shore. It is impossible
to know whether this particular story was true or simply a folk tale,
but everything seems to indicate that Two Toed Tom was real, and that he
continued to roam the swamps of Florida for many years. People would
constantly report seeing a huge male gator basking in lake shores, and
hearing his roars every morning. They identified him as Tom by the two
toed tracks he left in the sand and the mud. The most amazing part of
the story is that, although he was most famous during the 20s, Tom was
seemingly still alive during the 80s, when a huge gator lacking two of
his toes was reported in the same swamps where he had roamed his entire
life. Many hunts for the living legend were organized, but Two Toed Tom
was never captured.
As I have mentioned in a previous list, the most dangerous wild
animal in Japan is usually considered to be the Japanese Giant Hornet,
which kills 40 people a year, on average. However, the largest, most
powerful land predator in Japan is the Brown Bear, and, perhaps the most
brutal bear attack in history took place in the village of Sankebetsu,
Hokkaido, in 1915. At the time, Sankebetsu was a pioneer village, with
very few people living in a largely wild area. The area was inhabited by
brown bears, including a gigantic male known as Kesagake. Kesagake
used to visit Sankebetsu to feed on harvested corn; having became a
nuisance, he was shot by two villagers and fled to the mountains,
injured. The villagers believed that, after being shot, the bear would
learn to fear humans and stay away from the crops. They were wrong.
On December 9 of 1915, Kesagake showed up again. He entered the house
of the Ota family, where the farmer’s wife was alone with a baby she
was caring for. The bear attacked the baby, killing him, then went for
the woman. She tried to defend herself by throwing firewood at the
beast, but was eventually dragged to the forest by the bear. When
people arrived to the, now empty, house, they found the floor and walls
covered on blood. Thirty men went to the forest, determined to kill the
bear and recover the unfortunate woman’s remains. They found Kesagake
and shot him again, but failed to kill him. The animal fled and they
found the woman’s partially eaten body buried under the snow, where the
bear had stored it for later consumption.
The bear later returned to the Ota family’s farm, and armed guards
were sent after him. But this left another village house unprotected,
and Kesagake took advantage of this, attacking the Miyoke family’s home
and mauling everyone inside. Although some of the people managed to
escape, two children were killed and so was a pregnant woman, who,
according to surviving witnesses, begged for her unborn baby’s life as
the huge bear advanced. Of course, it was all in vain; Kesagake killed
her, too. When the guards realized their mistake and returned to the
Miyoke house, they found the bodies of the two children, the woman and
her unborn fetus all laying in the blood covered floor. In only two
days, Kesagake had killed six people. The villagers were terrified and
most of the guards abandoned their posts out of fear.
A famed bear hunter was informed of the incidents, and he identified
the bear as being Kesagake and informed that the bear had actually
killed before the Sankebetsu attacks. At first he refused to participate
in the hunt but eventually he joined the group and on December 14, he
was the one to finally kill Kesagake. The bear was almost three meters
tall and weighed 380 kgs. Human remains were found in his stomach. The
horrible incidents didn’t end there; some of the people who had survived
the attacks died of their wounds. One of the survivors drowned in a
river. The region was soon abandoned by villagers and became a ghost
town. Even today, the Sankebetsu incident remains the worst animal
attack in the history of Japan, and one of the most brutal of recorded
history.
These shark attacks took place in 1916, in a time where little was
known about sharks of any kind, and some scientists even claimed that
sharks were not dangerous at all. This is one of the very few cases of
real “man eating sharks” known, with most shark attacks being isolated
incidents. It all happened along the coast of New Jersey; the first
victim was a young man named Charles Vansant who was attacked in very
shallow water while swimming with a dog; several people, including his
family, witnessed the attack, and a lifeguard rushed to rescue the young
man. The shark was extremely tenacious and seemingly followed the
lifeguard to the shore, disappearing shortly after. The shark’s teeth
had severed Vansant’s femoral arteries and one of his legs had been
stripped off its flesh; he bled to death before he could be taken to a
hospital. Five days later, another man, Charles Bruder, was attacked by
the same shark while swimming away from the shore. At first it was
reported by a witness that a red canoe had capsized; in reality, the
“red canoe” was a giant stain of Bruder’s blood. The shark had bitten
off his legs. He was dragged back to the shore, where the sight of his
mangled body seemingly “caused women to faint”, but it was too late; he
was dead by the time he got to the beach.
Although sharks had been seen in the area during those few days,
scientists who were informed of the attacks claimed that sharks were
unlikely to be responsible, and said that the culprit had probably been a
killer whale or a sea turtle! The next attacks took place not in the
sea, but in a creek near the town of Matawan. Again, people reported
seeing a shark in the creek, but they were ignored until, on July 12, an
eleven year old boy was attacked while swimming and dragged underwater.
Several townspeople rushed to the creek, and a man named Stanley
Fisher dove into the water to find the boy’s remains, but he too was
attacked by the shark and died of his wounds. The final victim was
another young boy barely 30 minutes after the attack on Stanley Fisher.
Although he was severely injured, he was the only victim to survive.
On July 14, a young female Great White Shark was captured in the
Raritan Bay near the Matawan Creek. It is said that human remains were
found in her stomach. But, although this shark was usually thought to be
the man eater, not everyone is convinced. Today, scientists believe
that, although the female Great White shark may have been responsible
for the first two attacks, the Matawan creek attacks were probably the
work of a Bull Shark. Unlike the Great White Shark, the Bull Shark can
survive in fresh water, and is an extremely aggressive species,
considered by some as even more dangerous than the Great White. Even
so, this was the beginning of the Great White Shark’s terrible
reputation as a man eater. Once confirmed that the Jersey attacks had
been the work of a shark, there was media frenzy and a shark panic
“unrivaled in American history”. The incidents inspired Peter
Benchley’s most famous novel, Jaws, which would later be adapted into a
movie by Steven Spielberg. Even today, lots of people who saw the movie
are terrified of going into the water, and it all started in 1916.
I have already mentioned Sloth Bears in a previous list; however,
although these animals maul many humans in India every year (one per
week according to some), they rarely eat their victims. In fact, they
rarely eat meat at all, and prefer to feed on termites and fruits, and
are particularly fond of honey. However, there was a Sloth Bear that
became infamous for being a man-killer.
There are some very strange legends about the origins of the Mysore
Killer Bear; some say that the bear was a male and that he had
originally abducted a girl as his mate. The girl was rescued by
villagers and the bear went into a killing spree as revenge.
Another, more believable version says the bear was a female whose
cubs had been killed by humans, and that she became a man-killer to
avenge them. However, most experts today believe that the bear was
probably injured by humans, and became abnormally aggressive as a
result. The bear attacked three dozen people in the Indian state of
Mysore. In typical Sloth Bear fashion, it would rip the victim’s face
off with its claws and teeth, and those who survived were often left
completely disfigured. 12 of the victims died, and three of them were
devoured, something extremely unusual. The bear was eventually killed by
Kenneth Anderson, a famed big game hunter, although the beast was very
evasive and three hunts had to be arranged before the animal was finally
brought down.
