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Jim corbett

About Jim Corbett

Edward James "Jim" Corbett (25 July 1875 in Nainital, India –19 April 1955 in Nyeri, Kenya) was a legendary British hunterandtracker-turned-conservationist, author and naturalist, famous for hunting a large number of man-eating tigers and leopards in India.

Corbett held the rank of colonel in the British Indian Army and was frequently called upon by the government of the United Provinces, now the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, to kill man-eating tigers and leopards that were preying on people in the nearby villages of the Garhwal and Kumaon regions. His hunting successes earned him longstanding respect and fame in Kumaon. Some even claim the locals considered him a sadhu (holy man).

Corbett was an avid photographer and after his

retirement authored Man-Eaters of Kumaon, Jungle Lore,

and other books recounting his hunts and experiences,

which enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success.

Later on in life, Corbett spoke out for the need to

protect India's wildlife from extermination and played a

key role in creating a national reserve for the endangered

Bengal tiger by using his influence to persuade the

provincial government to establish it. In 1957 the

national park was renamed Jim Corbett National Park in

his honour.

History Of Jim Corbett

Edward James Corbett was born of English ancestry in the town of Nainital in the Kumaon of the Himalaya (now in the Indian state of Uttarakhand). He grew up in a large family of 16 children and was the eighth child of Willam Christopher and Mary Jane Corbett. His parents had moved to Nainital in 1862 , after Christopher Corbett had been appointed the town'spostmaster. In winters, the family

used to move to the foothills, where they owned a cottage named 'Arundel' in Chhoti Haldwani or 'Corbett's Village', now known as

Kaladhungi. After his father's death, when Jim was 4 years old, his eldest brother Tom took over as postmaster of Nainital.

From a very young age, Jim was fascinated by the forests and

wildlife around his home in Kaladhungi. At a young age, through

frequent excursions, he learned to identify most animals and

birds by their calls. Over time he became a good tracker and

hunter. He studied at the Oak Openings School, later merged

with Philander Smith College in Nainital (later known as Halett

War School, and now known as Birla Vidya Mandir, Nainital).

Before he was 19, he quit school and found employment with

the Bengal and North Western Railway, initially working as a fuel

inspector at Manakpur in the Punjab, and subsequently as a

contractor for the trans-shipment of goods across the Ganges at

Mokameh Ghat in Bihar.

Jim Corbett turned into

conversationist

Corbett bought his first camera in the late 1920s and, inspired by his friend Frederick Walter Champion,

started to record tigers on cine film. Although he had an intimate knowledge of the jungle, it was a demanding

task to obtain good pictures, as the animals were exceedingly shy.

Corbett became deeply concerned about the tigers' habitat and fate; he didn't kill a tiger without

confirmation of it killing people.

He took to lecturing groups of schoolchildren about

their natural heritage and the need to conserve

forests and their wildlife.He promoted the

foundation of the Association for the Preservation of

Game in the United Provinces and the All-India

Conference for the Preservation of Wildlife.

Together with Champion he played a key role in

establishing India's first national park in the Kumaon

Hills, the Hailey National Park, initially named after

Lord Malcolm Hailey.The park was renamed in

Corbett's honour in 1957.

Hunting man-eating tigers and

leopardsBetween 1907 and 1938, Corbett tracked and shot a total of 33 man-

eaters, though only about a dozen were actually well documented. It is

claimed that these big cats had killed more than 1,200 men, women and

children. The first tiger he killed, the Champawat Tiger in Champawat,

was responsible for 436 documented deaths. Though most of his kills were

tigers, Corbett successfully killed at least two man-eating leopards. The

first was the Panar Leopard in 1910, which allegedly killed 400 people.

The second was the man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag in 1926, which

terrorized the pilgrims on the holy Hindu shrines Kedarnath and Badrinath

for more than eight years, claiming responsibility for more than 126

deaths.

Other notable man-eaters he killed were the Talla-Des

man-eater, the Mohan man-eater, the Thak man-eater,

the Muktesar man-eater and the Chowgarh tigress.

Analysis of carcasses, skulls and preserved remains show

that most of the man-eaters were suffering from disease

or wounds, such as porcupine quills embedded deep in

the skin or gunshot wounds that had not healed. The

Thak man-eating tigress, when skinned by Corbett,

revealed two old gunshot wounds; one in her shoulder

had become septic, and could have been the reason for

the tigress's having turned man-eater.

Jim Corbett National ParkJim Corbett National Park is the oldest national park in India and was established in 1936 as Hailey National Park to protect theendangeredBengal tiger. It is located in Nainital district of Uttarakhand and was

named after Jim Corbett who played a key role in its establishment. The park was the first to come under the Project Tiger initiative.[2]

The park has sub-Himalayan belt geographical and ecological characteristics.[3]As an ecotourism destination, it contains 488 different

species of plants and a diverse variety of fauna. The increase in tourist activities, among other problems, continues to present a serious

challenge to the park's ecological balance.Corbett has been a haunt for tourists and wildlife lovers for a long time. Tourism activity is only

allowed in selected areas of Corbett Tiger Reserve so that people get an opportunity to see its splendid landscape and the diverse wildlife.

Corbett has been a haunt for tourists and wildlife lovers

for a long time. Tourism activity is only allowed in selected

areas of Corbett Tiger Reserve so that people get an

opportunity to see its splendid landscape and the diverse

wildlife. In recent years the number of people coming here has

increased dramatically. Presently, every season more than

70,000 visitors come to the park from India and other

countries.Corbett National Park comprises 520.8 km2. area of

hills, riverine belts, marshy depressions, grass lands and large

lake. The elevation ranges from 1,300 feet (400 m) to 4,000

feet (1,200 m). Winter nights in Corbett Park are cold but the

days are bright and sunny. It rains from July to September.

Dense moist deciduous forest mainly

consists of sal, haldu, pipal, rohini and

mango trees, and these trees cover almost

73 per cent of the park. The 10 per cent of

the area consists of grasslands. It houses

around 110 tree species, 50 species of

mammals, 580 bird species and 25 reptile

species. The endangered Bengal tiger of

India resides here.

Books written by Jim

Corbett

1] Man-Eaters of Kumaon

2]Jungle Stories.

3]The Man-eating Leopard of Rudraprayag.

4]My India.

5]Jungle Lore.

6]The Temple Tiger and More Man-eaters of Kumaon

7]Tree Tops.

8]My Kumaon: Uncollected Writings

Retiring in Kenya

Jim Corbett resided in the Gurney House along with his sister Maggie Corbett. They sold the house to Mrs. Kalavati Varma, before leaving for Kenya in November 1947. The house has been transformed into a

museum and is known as the Jim Corbett Museum.

After 1947, Corbett and his sister Maggie retired to Nyeri, Kenya,[4]where he continued to write and sound the alarm about declining

numbers of jungle cats and other wildlife. Corbett was at the Tree Tops, a hut built on the branches of a giant ficus tree, when Princess

Elizabeth stayed there on 5–6 February 1952, at the time of the death of her father,King George VI.

For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl

climbed into a tree one day a Princess, and after having what

she described as her most thrilling experience, she climbed

down from the tree the next day a Queen—God bless her.

Corbett died of a heart attack a few days after he finished his

sixth book, Tree Tops, and was buried at St. Peter's Anglican

Church in Nyeri. His memories were kept intact in the form of

the meeting place Moti House, which Corbett had built for his

friend Moti Singh, and the Corbett Wall, a long wall

(approximately 4.5 miles (7.2 km)) built around the village to

protect crops from wild animals.

Man-eaters of Kumaon was a great success in India, the United

Kingdom and the United States, the first edition of the

American Book-of-the-Month Club being 250,000 copies. It was

later translated into 27 languages. Corbett's fourth book, Jungle

Lore, is considered his autobiography.

The Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand, India was

renamed in his honour in 1957. He had played a key role in

establishing this protected area in the 1930s.

In 1968, one of the five remaining subspecies of tigers was

named after him: Panthera tigris corbetti, the Indochinese

Tiger, also called Corbett's tiger.

In 1994 and 2002, the long-neglected graves of Corbett

and his sister (both in Kenya) were repaired and restored

by Jerry A. Jaleel, founder and director of the Jim

Corbett Foundation.

Jim corbett national park's pictures