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Tsavo Lions [Kenya] {1898-1899} (35+ Victims)

Hollywood darlings and arguably the most famous of the man-eaters, the Tsavo lions have been
the subject of several moviesincluding Bwana Devil (1952) and The Ghost and the Darkness
(1996)and many books. The pair of males was accused of devouring some 140 workers along
Kenyas Tsavo River, where crews were building a railroad bridge in 1898. Hundreds of workers
fled, halting construction; the projects chief engineer finally hunted down both lions, and the
bridge was completed in 1899. Recent analysis of the lions hair and bones suggest that the lions
likely ate only about 35 people.
In March 1898 the British started building a railway bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya. The
project was led by Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson. During the next nine months of construction,
two maneless male Tsavo lions stalked the campsite, dragging Indian workers from their tents at
night and devouring them. Crews tried to scare off the lions and built campfires and bomas, or
thorn fences, around their camp for protection to keep the man-eaters out, to no avail; the lions
leaped over or crawled through the thorn fences. After the new attacks, hundreds of workers fled
from Tsavo, halting construction on the bridge. Patterson set traps and tried several times to
ambush the lions at night from a tree. After repeated unsuccessful endeavours, he shot the first
lion on 9 December 1898. Twenty days later, the second lion was found and killed. The first lion
killed measured nine feet, eight inches (3 m) from nose to tip of tail. It took eight men to carry
the carcass back to camp. The construction crew returned and completed the bridge in February
1899. The exact number of people killed by the lions is unclear. Patterson gave several figures,
overall claiming that there were 135 victims.
Patterson writes in his account that he wounded the first lion with one bullet from a Martini-
Enfield chambered in .303 calibre. This shot struck the lion in its back leg, but it escaped. Later,
it returned at night and began stalking Patterson as he tried to hunt it. He shot it through the
shoulder, penetrating its heart with a .303 Lee Enfield, and found it lying dead the next morning
not far from his platform. The second lion was shot at most nine times, five with a .303 Lee
Enfield, three with a Martini-Henry carbine, and once with an unidentified rifle.
The first was fired from atop a scaffolding Patterson had built near goat kills done by the lion.
Two, both from the Lee Enfield, were shot into it eleven days later as the lion was stalking
Patterson and trying to flee. When they had found the lion the next day thereafter, Patterson shot
it three more times with the Lee Enfield, severely crippling it, and shot it three times with the
Martini-Henry carbine, twice in the chest, and once in the head, which killed it. He claimed it
died gnawing on a fallen tree branch, still trying to reach him.
After 25 years as Patterson's floor rugs, the lions' skins were sold to the Chicago Field Museum
in 1924 for a sum of US$5,000 (US $66,389.37 in 2012).

The lions' skins arrived at the museum
in very poor condition. The lions were then reconstructed and are now on permanent display
along with the original skulls.
Patterson's accounts were published in his 1907 book The Man-Eaters of Tsavo.
The two lion specimens in Chicago's Field Museum are known as FMNH 23970 (killed 9
December 1898) and FMNH 23969 (killed 29 December 1898). Recent studies have been made
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upon the isotopic signature analysis of 13C and Nitrogen-15 in their bone collagen and hair
keratin and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. Using
realistic assumptions on the consumable tissue per victim, lion energetic needs, and their
assimilation efficiencies, researchers compared the man-eaters' 13C signatures to various
reference standards: Tsavo lions with normal (wildlife) diets, grazers and browsers from Tsavo
East and Tsavo West, and the skeletal remains of Taita people from the early 20th century. This
analysis estimated that FMNH 23969 ate the equivalent of 10.5 humans and that FMNH 23970
ate 24.2 humans.
This leads to the conclusion that the lower number of 35 victims is more likely and confirms the
study published 8 years previously by Julian Kerbis Peterhans and Thomas Patrick Gnoske
(2001) who estimated 2831 victims. It appears that Colonel Patterson exaggerated his claims as
have subsequent investigators (e.g. ""135 men", Neiburger and Patterson, 2000) (though none of
these modern studies have taken into account the people who were killed but not eaten by the
animals). The diet of the victims would also affect their isotopic signature. A low meat diet
would produce a signature more typical of herbivores in the victims, affecting the outcome of the
test.

This research also excludes, but does not disprove, the claims that the lions were not eating
the victims they killed but merely killing just to kill. Similar claims have been made of other
wildlife predators.
Lion of Kimaa [Uganda] {1900}
A man-eating lion had taken up his quarters at a little roadside station called Kimaa, and had
developed an extraordinary taste for the members of the railway staff. He was a most daring
brute, quite indifferent as to whether he carried off the station master, the signalman, or the
pointsman; and one night, in his efforts to obtain a meal, he actually climbed up on to the roof of
the station buildings and tried to tear off the corrugated-iron sheets. At this the terrified baboo in
charge of the telegraph instrument below sent the following laconic message to the Traffic
Manager: Lion fighting with the station. Send urgent succour. Fortunately he was not
victorious in his fight with the station; but he tried so hard to get in that he cut his feet badly on
the iron sheeting, leaving large blood-stains on the roof. Another night, however, he succeeded in
carrying off the native driver of the pumping-engine, and soon afterwards added several other
victims to his list. On one occasion an engine-driver arranged to sit up all night in a large iron
water-tank in the hope of getting a shot at him, and had a loop-hole cut in the side of the tank
from which to fire. But as so often happens, the hunter became the hunted; the lion turned up in
the middle of the night, overthrew the tank and actually tried to drag the driver out through the
narrow circular hole in the top through which he had squeezed in. Fortunately the tank was just
too deep for the brute to be able to reach the man at the bottom; but the latter was naturally half
paralysed with fear and had to crouch so low down as to be unable to take anything like proper
aim. He fired, however, and succeeded in frightening the lion away for the time being.

It was in a vain attempt to destroy this pest that poor Ryall met his tragic and untimely end. On
June 6, 1900, he was traveling up in his inspection carriage accompanied by two friends, Mr.
Huebner and Mr. Parenti. When they reached Kimaa they were told that the man-eater had
been seen close to the station only a short time before their train arrived, so they at once made up
their minds to remain there for the night and endeavor to shoot him. Ryalls carriage was
accordingly detached from the train and shunted into a siding close to the station, where, owing
to the unfinished state of the line, it did not stand perfectly level, but had a pronounced list to one
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side.[After dinner] they all sat up on guard for some time; but the only noticeable thing they
saw was what they took to be two very bright and steady glow-worms. After events proved that
these could have been nothing else than the eyes of the man-eater steadily watching them all the
time and studying their every movement. The hour now growing late, and there being apparently
no sign of the lion, Ryall persuaded his two friends to lie down, while he kept the first watch.
Huebner occupied the high berth over the table on the one side of the carriage, the only other
berth being on the opposite side of the compartment and lower down. This Ryall offered to
Parenti, who declined it, saying that he would be quite comfortable on the floor; and he
accordingly lay down to sleep, with his feet towards the sliding door which gave admission to
the carriage.

It is supposed that Ryall, after watching for some considerable time, must have come to the
conclusion that the lion was not going to make an appearance that night, for he lay down on the
lower berth and dozed off. No sooner had he done so, doubtless, than the cunning man-eater
began cautiously to stalk the three sleepers. In order to reach the little platform at the end of the
carriage, he had to mount two very high steps from the railway line, but these he managed to
negotiate successfully and in silence. The door from this platform into the carriage was a sliding
one on wheels, which ran very easily on a brass runner; and as it was probably not quite shut, or
at any rate not secured in any way, it was an easy matter for the lion to thrust in a paw and shove
it open. But owing to the tilt of the carriage and to his great extra weight on the one side, the
door slid to and snapped into the lock the moment he got his body right in, thus leaving him shut
up with the three sleeping men in the compartment.

He sprang at once at Ryall, but in order to reach him had actually to plant his feet on Parenti,
who, it will be remembered, was sleeping on the floor. At this moment Huebner was suddenly
awakened by a loud cry, and on looking down from his berth was horrified to see an enormous
lion standing with his hind feet on Parentis body, while his forepaws rested on poor Ryall. Small
wonder that he was panic-stricken at the sight. There was only one possible way of escape, and
that was through the second sliding door communicating with the servants quarters, which was
opposite to that by which the lion had entered. But in order to reach this door, Huebner had
literally to jump on to the man-eaters back, for its great bulk filled up all the space beneath his
berth. It sounds scarcely credible, but it appears that in the excitement and horror of the moment
he actually did this, and fortunately the lion was too busily engaged with his victim to pay
attention to him. So he managed to reach the door in safety; but there, to his dismay, he found
that it was held fast on the other side by the terrified coolies, who had been aroused by the
disturbance caused by the lions entrance. In utter desperation he made frantic efforts to open it,
and exerting all his strength at last managed to pull it back sufficiently far to allow him to
squeeze through, when the trembling coolies instantly tied it up again with their turbans. A
moment afterwards a great crash was heard, and the whole carriage lurched violently to one side;
the lion had broken through one of the windows, carrying off poor Ryall with him. Being now
released, Parenti lost no time in jumping through the window on the opposite side of the carriage,
and fled for refuge to one of the station buildings; his escape was little short of miraculous, as the
lion had been actually standing on him as he lay on the floor.

Ryalls remains were found next morning about a quarter of a mile away in the bush. Very
shortly afterwards the terrible brute who was responsible for this awful tragedy was caught in an
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ingenious trap constructed by one of the railway staff. He was kept on view for several days, and
then shot.
Chiengi Charlie [Zambia] {1909} (90 Victims)
This man-eatermissing half his tail and so light-colored that he was also known as the White
Lionhaunted Chiengi, the British post on the border of what was then Northern Rhodesia
(now Zambia), in 1909. Like many other notorious killers, and indeed like the cyclones which
occasionally devastate our countryside, he was given a nickname, in his case the unimaginative
alliterative Chiengi Charlie.
Of Africa's greatest recorded man-eaters, Chiengi Charlie ranks 5th numbers-wise and in Zambia
he is definitely the most colorful character - often endowed with the magical spiritual powers of
transformation. In the district in which he carried on his nefarious practices Charlie (became) a
celebrity, almost an institution, according to one account. He was alluded to with the almost
affectionate familiarity with which some people speak of the devil.
Even the Europeans had begun to credit Charlie with the possession of a charmed life! His
cunning and elusiveness were extraordinary and he seemed to have an uncanny premonition of
poison and traps. He had been known to kill within 100 yards of a watcher patiently sitting up for
him; or again he would take victims in places 50 miles apart within 24 hours.
He eventually teamed up with two other males to feed on the inhabitants of several villages.
Charlie and his partners reportedly ate 90 people, including the servant of a hunter sent to
destroy him. He eluded all manner of traps and the best marksmen in the country (though one
village woman managed to beat him off with a firebrand as he clawed through the mud wall of
her hut.) He was finally shot in a gun trap.
Msoro Monty [Zambia] {1929}
Though historically rich in wild game, the Luangwa River Valley in eastern Zambia has
produced a series of fearsome man-eaters. In 1929, one began stalking victims near the Msoro
Mission, which furnished his alliterative nickname. Msoro Monty never lost his knack for
sniffing out traps. After killing a large number of people, he disappeared without a trace.
Namwelu [Zambia] {1945} (40 Victims)
As recently as 1945, "Namwelu," which means "the cunning one," killed some forty people in
the Kasama neighborhood in Zambia.
The Man-Eaters of Njombe [Tanzania] {1932-1947} (1500+ Victims)
The most prolific of the man-eaters, this pride of 15 claimed hundreds of livesperhaps as many
as 1,500of lives between 1932 and 1947 in southern Tanzania. The renowned man-eaters of
Tsavo were very small fry compared to what these proved to be, wrote George Rushby, the
British game warden charged with stopping them.
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 wouldnt
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
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attack in History, and one of the worst cases of animal attacks ever recorded.
Prior to the prides bloody spree, the colonial government had reduced the numbers of prey
animals in the area in an effort to control a rinderpest outbreak that was destroying cattle herds.
The hungry lions quickly settled on human flesh as a substitute. Unlike most lions, the Njombe
pride did its killing in the afternoon, using the night hours to travel as far as 15 or 20 miles to an
unsuspecting village. Rushby believed that the cats actually used a relay system to drag bodies
into the safety of the bush.
When an attempt by some Italians failed, no one else tried to hunt the lions. The lions were rarely
even mentioned outside of the Tanganyika region, let alone inside it. When Rushby arrived there
six years later, he did not realize the seriousness of the situation until District Commissioner
Wenban-Smith telegrammed him saying, I beg you to apply earliest attention to man-eaters stop
conditions in this District pathetic. The Africans would not help Rushby at all out of abject fear.
Some believed that under Matamulas control, the lions were simba mtu, or werlions, the result
of men returning from the dead and taking on the appearance of a lion, or even living people
with the ability to magically change from human to lion and back again. Others believed that
Matamula and two trusted followers kept these real man-eaters in a secret location, and would
command the lions to kill specific people at night. Matamula used this fear to accept bribes and
tribute from the Africans, becoming wealthy in the process. Rushby finally managed to break
through this wall of fear when a local subchief, Jifiki, explained the history and politics
surrounding Matamula.

Rushby had a hard time hunting the man-eaters of Njombe, as they were incredibly cunning and
had developed habits over the past fifteen years unlike those of normal lion prides. He noted that,
If a man-eater continues to kill and eat people for any length of time it develops an almost
supernatural cunning. This often makes the hunting down and killing of such a lion a lengthy and
difficult task. These lions proved true to Rushbys observation, as it took over a year for all of
the man-eaters to be killed. It took over six weeks for Rushby to kill the first man-eater. Rushby
said that during this time the local opinion that I was wasting my time hunting the lions was
strengthened. After two lions were shot, the Africans told Rushby that they were happy that he
had shown them the lions were not invulnerable. Gradually, more and more of these man-
eaters were shot or speared by Rushby and some of his African rangers.
He finally hunted down and shot the lions. 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 tribes chief finally agreed to restore Matamula Mangera to his old
job.
Lion of Maiembi [East Africa] {Before 1950} (4+ Victims)
The man-eater of Maiembi caused fear which was not influenced by a belief that he was a demon
or the spirit of an irate deceased chief. This lion lived and died along the Zambezi River, again in
eastern Africa, sometime during the first half of the twentieth century. The local Africans knew
the reason why the lion had turned into a man-eater. A government official wanted a picture of a
wild lion, so he arranged for a lion trap to be set, which soon caught a normal lion. The lion
struggled to get free and eventually did so, but without the paw that had been stuck in the trap. A
wound like this one often turns a lion into a man-eater, since wild animals become too hard to
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catch when defenseless humans are around. The government official overlooked this fact and
thoughtlessly left the lion injured near a populous village. About a week after the lion escaped,
he killed his first victim. After another person succumbed to the lion, the local chief gathered
together the men of the island and tried to drive the lion off. This only resulted in the man-eater
killing two more people, since the villagers did not know how to organize a proper lion hunt.
Eventually the lion moved away from the first village and began terrorizing other villages. John
Taylor, a British professional hunter of man-eaters and marauding elephants, was passing
through the region and was asked to kill this lion as the African tribesmen lacked the experience
and equipment to do so themselves. After several days, Taylor finally caught up with the lion and
shot him. From this example, it is seen that when the cause of a lion turning into a man-eater is
known, the African tribes will not panic or being to suspect witchcraft is involved.
Lion of Mfuwe [Zambia] {1991} (6+ Victims)
This cat terrorized Zambias Luangwa River Valleynear Msoro Montys old stamping
groundsin 1991. After killing at least six people, the lion strutted through the center of a
village, reportedly carrying a laundry bag that had belonged to one of his victims. A California
man on safari, after waiting in a hunting blind for 20 nights, later shot and killed him. The lion
was more than ten feet long and, like the famous Tsavo lions, totally maneless. His body is on
display at Chicagos Field Museum.
The Mfuwe lion wasnt killing and eating people back in Victorian times or anything like that.
Rather, it was a modern man-eater, its attacks occurring in 1991. The first occurred as two boys
were walking along a road at night. One boy fled; by the time game rangers arrived at the attack
site, only pieces of clothing and part of the other boys skull were found. The second attack
occurred at the edge of a village this time the victim was an adult woman; the lion had broken
through the door of her hut to get her. The third attack (occurring at night on a boy who ventured
out to meet a friend) was foiled when a game scout fired his gun into the air during the attack,
but the boy died of his severe injuries anyway.
Three more kills occurred later in 1991, the last one again involving a woman being dragged
from the hut where she lived. Prior to this last kill, it was locally believed that lionesses
belonging to the L-pride were responsible for the killings, and indeed one of these lionesses
was shot dead in August of 1991. The important role of an adult male lion now came to the fore.
This lion entered the womans hut during daylight and removed a bag containing her laundry. It
took the bag to the centre of the village, dropped it, and stood over the bag, roaring. Remarkably,
the lion carried the bag about the countryside, leaving it at different locations and sometimes
playing with it. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, people now suspected that the lion was no ordinary lion,
but a demon or sorcerer in lion form.
Some sources say that people werent allowed to hunt and kill this lion because Zambias laws
about game conservation didnt allow it. Thats not wholly correct, given the killing of one of the
suspected man-eating lionesses by game wardens (they also shot a juvenile male lion at the same
time, but didnt kill it). The other females in the pride were also shot dead later on.
The Mfuwe man-eaters reign was put to an end by Californian hunter Wayne Hosek. Hosek
wasnt the first to try and kill the Mfuwe lion a professional hunter, and a Japanese hunter and
naturalist, had both tried earlier. Hosek was already in the area with permission to hunt
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individuals from a list of large mammal species, lion among them. Theres the whole debate here
about controlled hunting and its contribution to economy and conservation versus its abuse at the
hands of the unscrupulous, the selective impact it has on animal populations, and the ethics of
trophy-hunting.
Anyway, Hosek and professional hunter Charles Beukes sat for about three weeks in a hide,
hoping that a nearby bait of hippo meat would attract the cat and allow them to kill it. Early
attempts were unsuccessful the lion even circled the bait one night, but was so stealthy that it
had avoided all detection. Eventually, Hosek succeeded in killing it. On the lions death, people
swarmed out of the village to spit at the animal and beat it with sticks.
Osama [Tanzania] {2002-2004} (50+ Victims)
Osama terrorized Rufiji, Tanzania, from 2002 to 2004; he was accused of killing more than 50
people from eight villages over a period of two months. Part of a pride of males and females,
Osama likely didnt kill alone, but he was the lion villagers singled out to star in billboard-size
depictions of the bloody deeds (according to Tanzanian lion scientist Dennis Ikanda, the lion was
named after Osama bin Laden, whose terrorist attacks made headlines even in rural Tanzania.)
Osama was just 3 1/2 years old when game scouts shot him in April of 2004, around 150 km
south of the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.
Some have blamed his eating habits on a large abscess on one of his molars. "This lion probably
experienced a lot of pain, particularly when it was chewing," said Rolf Baldus, coordinator of the
wildlife programme of GTZ, the German development cooperation agency which has been
working with the Tanzanian government on wildlife conservation issues for the past 17 years. "It
probably gave up hunting wild animals like buffalo because the meat was just too tough and too
painful to chew. It almost certainly found humans easier to catch and less painful to eat." There
is of course no scientific proof for the toothache theory.
But, according to Packer, whose research team studied the case, plenty of man-eaters have
perfect teeth. Osama probably got started when his mother started eating people, Packer says.
"This lion was probably taught to hunt humans by its mother when it was young. Perhaps it gave
up hunting humans until it got toothache but then restarted," Mr. Baldus said.