Note: In this report, we have used the term ‘man-eater’ because it is the term used in official documents and referenced materials.
423 km from Bhopal, in Bawanthadi village, a 17-year-old adviashi boy, Sumit Pandre, was killed in a tiger attack on June 20, 2025. When villagers went to the forest, the tiger was sitting near Sumit’s body. This was Bajirao the tiger’s second attack in a matter of months. Earlier, it had attacked another 20-year-old boy. Like Sumit, he also died. “He is the only tiger in the area that is actively charging on forest staff during patrols, raising serious safety concerns,” a senior forest officer was anonymously quoted in The Times of India report.
After the villagers’ protest, the Forest Department initiated the process to relocate Bajirao outside Pench Tiger Reserve, in Madhya Pradesh. And, within 22 hours after the incident, the department tranquilized the tiger with the help of three patrolling elephants and relocated him to a safe location, 15 km away from Bawanthadi village.
While covering this rescue cum relocation operation, India Today published the news with the headline: ‘Man-eating tiger that killed 2, tranquillised and rescued in Madhya Pradesh.’ Similarly, ETV Bharat ran the story, titled: ‘आदमखोर बाघ को मिली सजा, सलाखों में कटेगी बाकी जिंदगी – SEONI TIGER RESCUED’ (Man-eating tiger punished, will spend the rest of its life behind bars). Likewise, another prominent media outlet, Aaj Tak, posted a video related to the rescue on its Facebook page which read: ‘In Seoni, Madhya Pradesh, a man-eating tiger was rescued today and sent to Van Vihar, Bhopal.’
The word to focus here is: ‘आदमखोर’ or man-eater. And, the stories of ‘man-eating’ tigers are not limited to Bajirao. We have heard such stories. At the same time, we’ve also heard the opposite, that tigers are actually afraid of humans. So, during our ground work in Pench Tiger Reserve, a question stuck: how much truth there is to the claim of a tiger becoming a man-eater?
And, this basic question lends itself to another more substantial question: how does the sensationalized coverage conflicts impact wildlife conservation efforts?
Man eater? What does that mean?
Pench Tiger Reserve, spread across the border of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, is known not only for its tigers but also for the stories associated with them. The collection of stories The Jungle Book by British author Rudyard Kipling, who was born in India, is also said to be inspired by a child (Mowgli) who was captured in 1831, just 10 km from Seoni.
Often, in the stories our protagonist, Mowgli— a ‘natural’ ambassador for the national park— is against the fictional Royal Bengal Tiger named Sher-Khan. This builds or feeds into the narrative of tigers vs humans.
In fact, the country’s first national park, established in 1936, was renamed in 1956 as Jim Corbett National Park, after the British hunter and author Jim Corbett. In 1907, he killed a tigress known as the Champawat Tiger, considered a ‘man-eater’ as it claimed 436 human lives. Corbett didn’t stop here. He went on to write books such as Man-Eaters of Kumaon (1944) and The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayag (1948). In Man-Eaters of Kumaon, Corbett writes: ‘A man-eating tiger is a tiger that has been compelled through stress of circumstances beyond its control, to adopt a diet alien to it.’
He further explained, “Human beings are not the natural prey of tigers, and it is only when tigers have been incapacitated through wounds or old age that, in order to live, they are compelled to take to a diet of human flesh.”
Dr Sarita Subramaniam from the Mumbai-based organization Earth Brigade Foundation also said, “‘Man-eater’ is a term coined by the British. Hunting agents like Jim Corbett popularized this term, but there is no historical evidence of any true man-eater. Tigers are carnivorous, stealthy predators… you can’t expect them to be anything but intelligent.”
Apart from stories, and accounts of popular hunters, the myths, and legends around tigers also make great gossip. The tiger stories are often exaggerated, and shared among smaller circles of people. That is a cultural, and social aspect of information sharing. Though, when this happens in the media it is a ‘red-flag’.
What is turning tigers Man-eaters?
Rajneesh Kumar Singh, the Deputy Director of Pench Tiger Reserve, shared the same sentiment. A month after the tiger attack in Seoni, we met him. His passion towards wildlife conservation was apparent, and so was his annoyance towards the media coverage of conflict incidents. Central to his frustration was tiger (baijrao) coverage without a clear understanding of the situation. He asked us, “what is a maneater tiger?”
He explained, “There are approximately 8,500 beats across Madhya Pradesh and around 12,000 to 14,000 beat guards. These people patrol the forest continuously. If tigers were attacking humans, our beat guards would be the first victims.”
Mandar Pingle, Deputy Director of the Satpura Foundation, which works on reducing human-wildlife conflict and promoting community roles in wildlife conservation, used the term ‘problem tiger’, instead of man-eater.
Pingle said that tigers can attack humans for two reasons. First, if a tiger is injured or old. This makes them unable to hunt its natural prey, so humans become easier targets. Second, while people collect mahua flowers or relieve themselves in the open, the tiger may mistake them for a four-legged animal and attack. He explained another potential reason: when a tiger has trauma related to humans. He added, if a tiger ever enters a village and people start throwing stones or chase it away, the tiger remains traumatized.
Professor Claudio Sillero, who teaches Conservation Biology at the University of Oxford, studied attacks on humans by tigers and leopards in the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra, located about 180 km from Pench Tiger Reserve, between 2005 and 2011. He analyzed 103 tiger attacks and 29 leopard attacks and found that 54% of these attacks were fatal to humans. He observed that tigers attacked men more often than women. Women were attacked while collecting minor forest produce like firewood, whereas men were attacked while grazing livestock and also collecting minor forest produce.
Only 21% of the deceased were partially consumed by carnivores. Out of 115 attacks for which researchers had eyewitness information, in only 15 (13%) cases was the animal provoked. In such attacks, 81% of the victims were either crouching or sitting at the time of the attack.
What are the guidelines?
A man-eating tiger is directly related to a tiger that actively seeks out and hunts humans. Pingle does not consider the term ‘man-eating tiger’ unscientific, but he said that the likelihood of such tigers is extremely rare.
To declare any non-big cat as a man-eater, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has issued a guideline. It states, “In spite of several theories being propounded about the non-existence of man-eaters, it is a stark reality that tigers and panthers turn man-eaters and action is to be taken to remove the menace to human life.”
But when will a tiger be considered a man-eater? According to the guideline,
“If a tiger/panther begins to seek out, stalk, and wait for human beings and, after killing a person, has eaten the dead body, it is established beyond doubt that the animal has turned into a man-eater.”
However, a tiger cannot be declared a man-eater based on ‘accidental attacks.’ Accidental attacks mean—someone approaching a tiger’s cub, disturbing a sleeping tiger, or being attacked while working in or near the forest. Even if a person is working in a sugarcane field adjacent to the forest and a tiger attacks and then consumes the person’s flesh, the tiger cannot be considered a man-eater.
R. Srinivas Murthy, a retired officer of the Indian Forest Service and former APCCF in the Madhya Pradesh Forest Department, said, “Earlier, when a tiger attacked a human, it was monitored for 2 to 3 months before being declared a man-eater. But now, people’s anger is greater, which is further fueled by social media. Due to political pressure, the tiger is often hastily captured and released in Van Vihar.”
How do journalists get news of a ‘man-eater’?
Manish Tiwari, a journalist for 27 years, moved to Seoni in 2013. Tiwari is part of local WhatsApp groups where videos or photos of tiger attacks are shared. The messages often mention the location of the attack. “Earlier, we used to get information about tiger attacks or tigers entering villages from our sources within the Forest Department or from villagers themselves. But, with social media and use of mobile phones, people now get information mostly by videos,” he said.
Gaurav Jaiswal, a resident of Seoni, is also a regular consumer of such news. He said that videos of tiger attacks are often shared with captions aimed at gaining hits and likes, frequently mentioning the tiger as a ‘man-eater’.
A journalist from another major digital media outlet, speaking to us on the condition of anonymity, shared that they are often instructed to use such terms to make the news more interesting and increase its ‘engagement.’ “Although we try to balance the news by including quotes from experts and Forest Department officials, these [the quotes] usually focus on the incident itself and do not address whether the tiger is a man-eater or not.”
These sightings, and consequent spectacle because of social media, sometimes have violent repercussions. Tiwari recalled an incident from three years ago. The villagers in Ugli village, located in the corridor connecting Pench and Kanha National Parks, tried to harm two tiger cubs. The reason was the area had recently experienced a tiger attack, and vented their anger in this way. Sometimes, the confrontation is violent from the animals’ side.
While there is temptation to be on the top of the news, for Tiwari the primary source is still the forest department’s official statements. “Many times, rare incidents come to light—like the sighting of a black leopard in Pench. To understand the scientific reasons behind such events, we get in touch with senior Forest Department officials who have considerable experience.”
Based on the NTCA guidelines, Bajirao was not a man-eater. However, ordinary villagers still do not accept this. Therefore, it is crucial that such terms are used with great caution when referring to any tiger.
When a tiger is declared a man-eater, there is a collective vow to kill it as soon as possible. For instance, when the Kerala government declared a tiger in Wayanad district as a man-eater, its body was found under suspicious circumstances in January of this year. In October 2022, after a tiger was declared a man-eater in Bihar, it was shot—a last resort in such situations. On November 2, 2018, a tigress named Avni (T1) was shot in Yavatmal, Maharashtra, because it had killed 13 villagers. This became extremely controversial with #JusticeofAvni hashtags on social media.
From interactions with individuals directly affected on the ground, it is evident that conservation debates require some fundamental guardrails. There is an urgent need for greater sincerity and responsibility in how issues of human-animal interaction are reported. The news has to move away from sensationalism, and toward more balanced and constructive information sharing. Equally important is the need to shift the narrative from one of conflict to one of co-existence. Humans and animals should be portrayed not as adversaries, but as interdependent participants in shared ecosystems. Murthy said that social media is now greatly influencing people’s attitudes towards wildlife. Clearly, there is a lack of reliable and accurate information, and it is the responsibility of mainstream media to bridge this information gap.
In exploring these perspectives, the root causes of conflict become clear: rapid urbanization, widespread deforestation, and a persistent lack of accurate, accessible information. Addressing these challenges demands not only practical interventions but also a reframing of how we tell the story of conservation.
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