Tigers of Chowgarh - Death of The Tigress and Post-mortem

Death of The Tigress and Post-mortem

On 11 April 1930, nineteen days after his arrival in Kala Agar, Corbett, along with two other men, tied the buffalo baits near an area where a young man had been previously killed. When positioning himself in a ravine, Corbett’s companions rushed to him, saying they had heard the tigress nearby. Corbett encountered the tigress face to face shortly after, sitting next to a large boulder. Corbett fatally shot the animal from a distance of eight feet, whose death coincided with an end to the attacks.

An examination of the tigress’ body showed that her claws and one canine tooth were broken and her front teeth were completely worn down. It was these disabilities that Corbett concluded led this tigress to having become a man eater as it was thus hampered in killing wild game.

Corbett used two calibres of rifles in hunting these man eating tigers. One was a very heavy calibre double-barrelled rifle, a "450/400", which was also quite heavy to carry. His second gun was a lighter calibre rifle, which he refers to as his "275", which term comes from the British designation for this calibre (as in "275 Rigby"). This calibre is identical to that known the world over as the "7x57 Mauser", which shoots a bullet that is 7 millimetre in diameter. Corbett's own "275" rifle was actually a Model 1893 Mauser, a military bolt action, which used a 5 round clip to feed its cartridges. It was this "275" with which he killed the Chowgarh tigress described above on 11 April 1930 at a location Corbett describes as being "two miles west of Kala Agar", a mountain village at the time.

The terrain in which Corbett hunted these tigers was mountainous and steep, with typical elevations being as high as 6,000 to 8,000 feet, and not far from the border between northern India and Nepal.