Man Eating Elephant

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Knowing elephant and having grown up on Corbett. I thought I had a bit of knowledge of India and elephant.

Early this morning I had you tube on and heard a very interesting.
The title name was The Mad elephant Mandala or something close to that.

The elephant had escaped his handler took to the forest and proceeded to destroy villages, kill around 50 people many of which he ate. In one case snatching a baby from a womans arms and popping it in its mouth.

I was half awake when I was listening to this so may have some mistakes of what I heard. The year was about 1871.

I hope to pull it up again, but maybe somebody can share their knowledge.

Lon



Screenshot 2024-09-14 at 8.30.46 AM.png
 
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Any Validity?

Lon
 
Impossible. An elephant’s dental structure doesn’t permit the chewing of flesh. It can’t digest flesh for that matter either.

When I was the DFO (Divisional Forest Officer) in charge of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, we encountered a report a wild Asiatic jungle elephant bull which had “Eaten” 11 people. We quickly found out that the elephant had gored people with it’s tusks and trampled/crushed them to death. But there was no actual evidence of the elephant eating people.
 
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I had never heard of such a thing.

Hippo eating flesh yes.

Lon
 
Heard already, in India in some cases like in the post of @Hunter-Habib and it was also suspected in a zoo in Germany or Switzerland, I don't remember me, where a zoo-keeper was killed by an elephant and according to a report eaten. But It seems to be an urban legend.
I remember reading about this one in Capstick’s book “Maneaters”.
 
Heard already, in India in some cases like in the post of @Hunter-Habib and it was also suspected in a zoo in Germany or Switzerland, I don't remember me, where a zoo-keeper was killed by an elephant and according to a report eaten. But It seems to be an urban legend.
I had seen that before as well, if memory serves they came to that conclusion when the elephant started passing the care takers clothes. But I would lean towards @Hunter-Habib expertise on the matter.
 
I have no idea if there is any truth to it, but I thoroughly enjoy that YouTube channel. Listening to these old stories sure beats listening to the same 10 songs over and over on my way to work
 
Capstick wrote of the zoo one as well as accounts of elephants being labeled as having ate humans as a result of carrying a limb about in the mouth. Iirc the theory generally (except the zoo) was they didn’t eat the person but had something of there’s held about like a limb in the mouth and as all the rest of Africa eating the remains nothing was found thereby the elephant must have eaten them.

ETA: Should have checked the dates on the posts
 

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