Tiger of Segur

The Tiger of Segur was a young man-eating male Bengal tiger. Though originating in the District of Malabar-Wynaad below the south-western face of the Blue Mountains, the tiger would later shift its hunting grounds to Gudalur and between Segur and Anaikutty. It was killed by Kenneth Anderson, who would later note that the tiger was blind in one eye, preventing it from hunting its natural prey.

Kenneth Anderson began his hunt for the tiger after it had killed a girl collecting water from the Segur river, then a herdsman a week later at Anaikutty.

“I visited both localities and by careful measurement and examination of the pugs, which were very clear on the river bank at Segur, determined that the tiger was a smallish-sized male of considerably less than adult age.”

Upon hearing that the tiger frequently traversed the ten miles of forest road between Segur and Anaikutty, Anderson decided to sit up on the route connecting the two places, but for a whole week, he saw no sign of the tiger. He was informed on the seventh day that a man had gone missing on the foothills of the Nilgiris, though upon finding his body, it turned out that the culprit had been a sloth bear.

Two days later, a report came in from Mahvanhalla stating that a woman had been taken by the tiger near a bridge by which the main road to Tippakadu crossed the Mahvanhalla stream. Anderson went deep into the surrounding jungle with a guide and eventually found pieces of the woman, which he took back to her husband for burial. Anderson tied a buffalo bait near the Segur river, but he did not expect the tiger to attack anytime soon after having already eaten, so he did not spend the night in the vicinity. Next day he was surprised when he found buffalo dead, and immediately set up a hunting platform above the carcass. Though the tiger called out through the night, it never made an appearance.

Two days later, just as Anderson considered leaving for Bangalore, a Badaga child was taken in Segur whilst taking a midday meal to his father. After convincing the boy’s father to leave the body as bait for the tiger, Anderson moved it to a densely covered location a few yards from the kill site in order to hide himself better in the tiger’s vicinity. By 9 in the evening, the tiger returned, but it left soon after without touching the corpse, possibly having become suspicious of how its victim had been moved.

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Wikipedia