No Beast So Fierce
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3.2 • 14 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A gripping, multifaceted true account of the deadliest animal of all time and the hunter on its trail, equally comparable to Jaws as to Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard.
""RIVETING."" —Scientific American • ""THRILLING."" —Wall Street Journal • ""GRIPPING."" —Nature
Nepal, c. 1900: The single deadliest animal in recorded history began stalking humans, moving like a phantom through the lush foothills of the Himalayas.
As the death toll reached an astonishing 436 lives, a young local hunter was dispatched to stop the now-legendary man-eater before it struck again.
One part pulse-pounding thriller, one part soulful natural history of the endangered Royal Bengal tiger, acclaimed writer Dane Huckelbridge’s No Beast So Fierce is the gripping, true account of the Champawat Tiger, which terrified northern India and Nepal from 1900 to 1907, and Jim Corbett, the legendary hunter who pursued it. Huckelbridge’s masterful telling also reveals that the tiger, Corbett, and the forces that brought them together are far more complex and fascinating than a simple man-versus-beast tale.
At the turn of the twentieth century as British rule of India tightened and bounties were placed on tiger’s heads, a tigress was shot in the mouth by a poacher. Injured but alive, it turned from its usual hunting habits to easier prey—humans. For the next seven years, this man-made killer terrified locals, growing bolder with every kill. Colonial authorities, desperate for help, finally called upon Jim Corbett, a then-unknown railroad employee of humble origins who had grown up hunting game through the hills of Kumaon.
Like a detective on the trail of a serial killer, Corbett tracked the tiger’s movements in the dense, hilly woodlands—meanwhile the animal shadowed Corbett in return. Then, after a heartbreaking new kill of a young woman whom he was unable to protect, Corbett followed the gruesome blood trail deep into the forest where hunter and tiger would meet at last.
Drawing upon on-the-ground research in the Indian Himalayan region where he retraced Corbett’s footsteps, Huckelbridge brings to life one of the great adventure stories of the twentieth century. And yet Huckelbridge brings a deeper, more complex story into focus, placing the episode into its full context for the first time: that of colonialism’s disturbing impact on the ancient balance between man and tiger; and that of Corbett’s own evolution from a celebrated hunter to a principled conservationist who in time would earn fame for his devotion to saving the Bengal tiger and its habitat. Today the Corbett Tiger Reserve preserves 1,200 km of wilderness; within its borders is Jim Corbett National Park, India’s oldest and most prestigious national park and a vital haven for the very animals Corbett once hunted.
An unforgettable tale, magnificently told, No Beast So Fierce is an epic of beauty, terror, survival, and redemption for the ages.
Customer Reviews
Gripping
Challenging to put down once begun
Interesting but flawed
The author seems far more interested in preaching an anti-western ideology than telling the story of this tiger. In doing so, he helps to perpetuate a number of widely circulated myths. The first is that virtually every large scale maneating creature has been forced into its condition by wounds, health problems, habitat loss, and/or human-faulted conflict. I’ve studied this subject fairly extensively (there are many cases of individual lions, tigers, and leopards that killed dozens of people and multiple that killed hundreds) and the vast majority of these animals were in good health with nearby access to prime habitat rich with natural prey. The case of this book was the exception, not the rule.
The author also lays all blame for wildlife depletion on western colonialists while upholding indigenous peoples as saintly beacons of conservation. From both research and years spent in the field, I can say this couldn’t be further from the truth. It is true that colonial forces enabled wildlife depletion, but that was primarily done indirectly through the provision of technology sufficient to bring down wildlife at a large scale (guns, etc.) and medicine that enabled indigenous populations to rapidly expand in tropical areas. The reality is that initiatives originally established by westerners are responsible for nearly 100% of habitat conservation and species protection in Africa and India today. Indigenous poaching for the bush meat trade and illegal animal product sales to Asian markets, coupled with habitat encroachment, have fueled almost all species endangerments in Africa and Asia. There’s a lot that’s deeply wrong with colonialism, but to apply it to these issues is almost the exact opposite of the truth.
In short, the author reports on a fascinating story, which can overcome incessant propagandistic sermons to still make for an interesting book, but his perspective is skewed and biased enough that it makes the overall package difficult to tolerate for someone knowledgeable on the subject.
A bore
Author seemed compelled to quadruple the length of the book by way of incessant regressions to endless, irrelevant detail. It could be condensed to a reasonable short story, but as it is I just couldn’t get through it. A meandering detailed mini-biography of Corbett’s parent was just too much. I gave up and deleted it at that point.