Gentleman Jim Corbett

The hunter-naturalist and cat killer Gentleman Jim Corbett was a fraud. He was a fraud to himself, too. He deceived himself into believing that he was a conservationist. How can you be a conservationist and a devout wildcat hunter and killer? Sure he hunted "man-eaters". Big cats, which were forced to attack people. But the underlying reason why these animals attacked people, usually women and children, is because of the activities of humankind. Take, for example, the famous man eating leopard the "Panar Leopard", shot by hero Corbett after a long battle of wits. This cat (not much bigger than a big dog with an average weight of about 135 lbs or under 10 stones) was hurt by a poacher and was thereafter forced to prey on children and women. We (people) caused the problem and we resolved the problem by eliminating it. The leopard lost out twice, once when shot by the poacher and then when killed by Corbett. He was no doubt hailed as a hero but I don't see it that way.

Gentleman Jim Corbett - gentleman?

All man eaters are going to be similar in one form or another to the Panar Leopard as a leopard will chose the easiest prey and if there is a more natural prey it will go for that. People are not the natural prey of leopards. Something has gone wrong if the leopard attacks people and the cause of that wrong is more than likely to be us. We cannot therefore praise someone as "a man of decency, honor and humanity" etc. when he has missed the point completely. He was deluded. At the time he and the others involved owed a moral debt to help the leopard not to kill it. Apparently he turned to photo safaris later in life, so I think he saw the light.

And to say he is "an Indian-born British hunter, conservationist and naturalist", (Wikipedia author) is an oxymoron (a figure of speech that combines two apparently contradictory terms). Lets look at the definitions:

• hunter - "a person or animal that seeks out and kills or captures game"
• conservationist - "one that practices or advocates conservation, especially of natural resources"
• conservation - "The protection, preservation, management, or restoration of wildlife..."
• naturalist - " One versed in natural history, especially in zoology or botany."

A person who kills cannot be involved in the preservation of wildlife when the wildlife in question is already endangered or likely to be endangered if killed needlessly. The leopard could have been trapped and placed in a reserve.



Hunter-Naturalist and Cat Killer Jim Corbett to Home Page

Gentleman Jim Corbett - Photo: published under Wikimedia® creative commons license license = Attribution-ShareAlike License

Gentleman Jim Corbett - Definitions: http://www.thefreedictionary.com