by John Vogel
Bachelors have always received negative attention. Historically speaking, single males older than 30 have been seen as oddballs, misfits and even somewhat feral. Bachelors are free to roam, true masters of their own fates. Blasting Led Zeppelin at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday, eating tacos over the sink, watching Heat (1995) on repeat while trying to do mag changes like Val Kilmer. Despite the bad name received from cheap TV shows, bachelorhood isn’t all bad.
Unless you live in Powalgarh, India.
For give or take 10 years, a very large, incredibly vocal, Bengal tiger roamed northern India looking to hunt, feed, and every so often, find a very temporary mate. This tiger was not a documented man-eater—yet—and didn’t seem to bother the local population much, but locals were well aware of his presence. It wasn’t until one day, by chance, an Indian-born Brit named Jim visited the region and happened to spot the large mass of stripes moving up a hill and immediately knew this was a tiger of the highest acclaim. Upon investigation, Jim found the sizable paw prints and tracked it to a gigantic bachelor pad, confirming this beast was a true monster. The tiger was not seen again during that trip and the Brit left with a real bug up his ass about it.
For seven years, the tiger continued living his life, listening to cattle, eating sambar deer in the brush, watching villagers come and go. And then the Brit returned, looking to end his obsession with this massive striped monster of a tiger. Jim had made it his specialty to track and hunt problematic mega fauna that broke the unspoken agreement between man and clawed beast. He had a reputation at being obsessive yet confident in his own abilities, and he wasn’t here because this beast was causing problems, he was here because in all his time, he couldn’t shake the image of this expert killer cruising through his memory. He came to hunt. Not cull, not harvest. Hunt.
Day 1: The hunter plopped down and waited for the forest to tell him where to find his tiger. He was aware there were two known tigers in the area, only one being his target. Falling asleep for an afternoon nap, he was awakened by the call of a male tiger looking for female company. Knowing how to manipulate a revved up bachelor, the Brit mimicked the call of a female tiger, got to an advantageous position and froze. Balancing his Jeffrey double rifle loaded with .450/400 Nitro Express, he waited until he noticed a large set of eyes staring back at him from 10 yards away, a foot or two within the brush line. He slowly swung the right barrel over, pulled the trigger and the head and eyes leapt high into the air, revealing the massive muscle-bound cat. The bachelor retreated into the brush. The hunter sat and waited, too scared to test the keen senses of the cat.
Day 2: Jim set out to find the bachelor with an experienced tree climber. They found a depressed trail through the brush, a flattened area spattered with blood, but no tiger carcass. Confident a beast of any size couldn’t survive long with a head wound, they followed the blood trail. The trail came up cold, as he found two pools of blood only 10 yards from where he shot the day before. The stress built as the trail ran cold, only finding some leaves with head-height blood splatter. Most may second guess their shot placement, and it’s not unheard of for a large-bodied cat to absorb a bullet and run off, but the hunter held a key piece of evidence found in the blood trail: a 2-inch chunk of bone, straight from the skull.
Day 3: Day two ended with a shard of tiger skull, a shotgun, and 100 shotgun shells. Jim did his best to rouse the tiger out of its ICU bed by spraying shot into the brush but came up short. The bachelor was now just being treated as a large, pissed-off, wounded tiger. Allowing nature to take its expected course, the hunter requested the services of a local buffalo man. Water buffalo have a knack for smelling danger, only with the goal of smashing danger’s brain in. They can pick up blood trails much like a bloodhound, and the hunter utilized this natural skill in finding this bachelor. Twenty-five buffalo headed into the forest, in search of an angry, wounded cat. After a long walk in, the buffalo led the men to a flattened blood covered bed. They decided that getting mauled by a tiger AND trampled by buffalo would suck, so they backed out.
Day 4: Returning to the bed, he found little blood and relied on the very paw prints he saw 7 years before. Moving into the brush, he observed a steady trail. He stalked, slowly, every step intentional, knowing that this cat, though wounded, was the superior hunter. A sambar stag entered his line of sight and quickly ran ahead, only to be taken down with a thud. Knowing he found his cat, he crawled on his belly, staying out of the tiger’s sight. He heard the sounds of pads on sticks, dead leaves, and dirt. Looking up to check, their eyes met at 10 yards, the same eyes he saw just a few days before. The prints, the head, the eyes, that haunted him for 7 years were looking at him once again. Both barrels emptied into the tiger, and down it went.
The tiger weighed in at 700 lb, measured to 10’ 7”. For four days, the tiger walked around with a large exit wound on the back of his head. Due to the overall lack of tigresses in the area, the tiger came to be known as the Bachelor of Powalgarh, and we know the man responsible for hunting him as Jim Corbett, the legendary hunter of man-eaters.
