An estimated 436 people were killed by a single female Bengal tiger. Her attacks began in the late 1890s in western Nepal and escalated so quickly that the Nepalese army was called in. The soldiers never killed her. Their massive beat only drove her across the river into the Kumaon district of India, where she changed her habits to stay ahead of hunters, covering up to 32 kilometers in a night and ranging across dozens of villages around the town of Champawat. Most of her victims were young women and children gathering firewood and fodder at the forest edge.

In 1907 the death of a 16 year old girl left a blood trail, and a 31 year old hunter named Jim Corbett followed it alone. He was nearly ambushed at the scene and escaped only by firing two blind shots. This episode retells the showdown that followed in a river gorge the next day, then turns to what Corbett found when he examined the body: a healthy animal with shattered canines, living in forests being cleared for timber as her natural prey disappeared.

• Trackers measured her range by matching pug marks against the timeline of attacks in different valleys.
• A local official organized 298 villagers to drive the tiger down the gorge with drums, shouts, and blank cartridges.
• Corbett wounded her, ran out of ammunition as she charged, grabbed the official’s rifle, and dropped her six meters away.
• The upper and lower canines on the right side of her jaw were broken, which made gripping and killing wild boar or deer nearly impossible.
• Corbett described the hunt in his 1944 account and later became an outspoken advocate for conservation. A cement marker still shows where she fell.