When animals of any species realise that physically how weak man is, their fear evaporates. Coupled with anger due to prior bad experience, sudden provocation and no space to flee, they try to hit back resulting in loss of life.

There is an unprecedented assault on the character of our forests by people who are entering into it for various reasons. The forests are no longer inviolate. Local villagers and their livestock, woodcutters, poachers etc enter the forests every day. Add to it the huge number of noisy tourists who enter into the forests. This has changed the nature of our forests. Tigers are primarily solitary and regal in nature. Except for modern day prime-ministers a monarch is not expected to be bombastic and garrulous. Likewise the tiger is silent, dignified and regal in nature. Mess with him by repeatedly violating his/her comfort zone and things has to change. Unfortunately in this saga the tiger is also killed.

Having said that, it is also too easy to brand tigers as attackers and provocateurs-in-chief as it fits in with our image of wild life and tigers as blood thirsty animals. In the past in Corbett to prove the complicity of tigers in human killings it was alleged that a man's slipper was found from a tiger's belly. Tigers are fastidious creatures and take immense attention to what the eat. They don't gulp down or swallow like a python.

So I we should also be a bit cautious in branding tigers as mankillers or man-eaters.