We may be familiar with lions, but you know what? There are 2 subgroups of lions: African lions and Asiatic lions, 8 subspecies, most of which are from African lion groups, including Congo lions, Katanga lions, Kenyan lions and other 13 species, while the Asiatic lion group alone includes Asiatic lions. There is a kind of Chavo lion in Kenya's Chavo National Park that is very distinctive, in addition to its smooth and maneless appearance, the main reason is its habit of eating people, which has made it famous, although it has made it famous. The worst cannibalism occurred at the end of the 19th century, when two lions killed and ate about 135 workers in less than a year.
In 1897, when Africa was still a colony of the Empire, in order to better plunder the crops and mineral resources here back to its own country, the British Empire decided to build a railway between Uganda and the Kenyan port of Kirhindini, and in March of the following year, 35,000 workers had already entered the construction site.
The most affected was a railway bridge site on the Chavo River, which was also the site of the incident, where thousands of people were working at the same time, and in charge of the section was a lieutenant colonel named John Henry Patterson, who started the work in a step-by-step manner, but within a few days there was a reaction that the co-workers had disappeared for no reason, and Lieutenant Colonel Patterson did not care too much, because it was a barbaric era, and nearly 8,000 people had been injured and killed throughout the railway project due to illness and work.
But the bad news did not stop, but became more and more serious, until the disappearance of a British engineer, Lieutenant Colonel Patterson felt that things were a bit strange, so he went to the engineer's tent to find the reason, after finding the blood scattered on the ground, he finally found sporadic human tissue in the jungle, some of which were eaten beyond recognition, some of which were hollowed out, from the point of view of decay, this is obviously a cannibalistic place or a dumping ground, the air is filled with a strong fishy smell, and mixed with the smell of putrefaction, Flies flew wildly, and with blood on the ground, the fellow workers vomited wildly, and even the well-informed Patterson was a little creepy!
Because he really did not expect that the lions here actually like to eat human flesh so much, and did not expect that they would attack the construction team with a large number of people, the courage was really big enough to see no one, but Patterson was a very strong person, although this scene made him a little afraid, in order to stabilize the people's hearts of the construction team, it was imperative to kill the beast. So he went back to organize everyone to fight back, in fact, Patterson only heard that the murderer was a lion, but he had not seen it with his own eyes, and the only weapon that benefited was the gun in his hand.
Under the conscious defense, 2 lions did appear, but based on the terrain and the speed of the lion's agile reaction, although everyone shot and fired, they did not hurt a single hair, but provoked them and killed several workers. Patterson realized the strength of his opponent, but he was also helpless, and for the next few days the lions would still come to the construction site every night to attack the workers, and the death toll was rising, and some people resigned or fled because they could not overcome this fear.
In fact, During this period, Patterson also thought of many ways to deal with lions, but none of them had practical effects, such as: designing some complex and delicate traps; adding meat to poison and placing it in places where lions often haunted; pretending to be alone, and then following the people around them. But these 2 lions are cunning, avoiding traps every time, and even attacking the brightly lit camp, and can also accurately attack the weaknesses of the campsite's defenses.
Finally Patterson thought of a way to catch a monkey first, then use its body as bait to make a wooden gallows, and successfully capture one of them when the lion came to hunt. But the second lion took the opportunity to slip away, and then this move failed, there was no way to do anything about it, Patterson had to organize a lion hunting squad many times, or attack or die, and finally confronted the lion in an operation, the lieutenant colonel took the pistol and fired 5 shots in a row, but the 3-meter-long lion was provoked, appeared in a state of rage, roared and rushed over, only to see Patterson raise his rifle and shoot three shots in a row, before killing the furious Chavo lion! Coupled with the shooting of others, the lion was shot more than a dozen times!
When counting the loot, some people still have psychological shadows and dare not go to the lion, even after death, its vicious face is extremely frightening, and this 550-pound lion needs 8 workers to lift up! According to Patterson's estimates, a total of 135 people were killed before and after, which should be the work of these 2 lions.
So the question is, why did these 2 lions risk eating people? According to later researchers, there are mainly the following reasons.
First of all, in the era of great navigation, the European powers led by Britain took Africa as a colony, not only plundered natural resources, even black Africans were also sold as black slaves, and the area where the Chavo lion was located was the main road of transportation, but in the process of selling black slaves, many people would die for various reasons, and the merchants were indifferent to this, leaving them to fend for themselves, so these human corpses became the free lunch of the lions, generation after generation, the cannibal nature has long been carved into the bone marrow of the lion, Humans are therefore the first food in their recipes. The corpses of the dead railway workers successfully attracted the 2 lions, and the hunt began.
Secondly, some people think that these 2 lions are because of the severe damage to their teeth during hunting, which causes them to suffer severe pain due to fierce bites when they prey on other animals, or that they are simply old Chavo lions, unable to prey on other animals, and in order to survive, they set their sights on slow-moving and defenseless humans. This idea was made by researchers at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.
However, according to the study of lion skulls, some people found that the age of two lions is about 7 years old, which is when they are strong and strong, it is impossible to have physical decline, the main reason is the reduction of food, because at that time, due to rinderpest, the number of traditional foods of lions was sharply reduced, so they had to eat carrion, plus there were often abandoned corpses on both sides of the railway, which developed their habit of eating human flesh, and finally they took the initiative to hunt and kill the living to fill their hunger.
100 years later, the United States released a movie called "Ghost of the Night", which is based on this story, and director Stephen Hopkins mobilized five lions from California, France and Canada to show the wilderness, mystery and horror of the original African savannah.