The FULL Story of the Man-Eating Lions of Tsavo

hi I'm Bob Gimlin the man-eating Lions of Tsavo represent one of the most fascinating human wildlife conflict sand recorded history all the information in the following narrative comes from Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson's autobiographical account of the incident the man-eaters of Tsavo first published in 1907 sometimes the documented is even more fantastic than the speculative it all began when Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson came to Africa Patterson was of higher rank and decoration than most British officers of his age of just 30 years old he landed in Mombasa on March 1st in 1898 Mombasa was already steeped in history as it was the key port that linked various rivers to the Indian Ocean he was greeted by a Portuguese fortress that stood imposing it was built over 300 years before Patterson was born it had been captured by Sultan's nine times and reclaimed by the Portuguese eight times the British purchased it in 1895 as the sultan could not hold it from a raging Swahili chieftain the British finally repelled him a couple years before Patterson's arrival at a heavy cost and this is just one of the reasons why Mombasa has long been called Kashiwa Vita meaning the island of war in fact that is why Patterson was sent in the first place he was commissioned by the london-based Uganda Railway Committee on behalf of the Imperial British East Africa company within the jurisdiction of the British protectorate of Uganda London had spent far more money than they anticipated to tame the region and now they wanted to make sure their investment was not being squandered Patterson was sent there to hasten results and in sheer efficiency he was one of those guys Patterson was in Mombasa for a number of days before he received his orders he was to accompany a newly appointed chief medical officer to a place called Tsavo where they were to begin construction of a bridge to cross a river and ideally complete it before the rest of the laborers can structured the railway to it from the opposite side for 20 miles out of Mombasa the environment was lush with leafy trees and flowery bushes speckling the earth but as the train entered the taru desert Patterson said that the landscape took a more ominous tone the dark earth gradually became a red sand and there was less and less green pastures for cattle disappeared and the only trees to be seen were leafless dead and toppled like spikes he said he said that through this stretch of the taru desert to the river Tsavo ostriches would run parallel to the Train for as long as they could almost as if to get a glimpse of the travelers foolish enough to go that way to go to that wild place to that final vestige of wilderness that once tame would link the continent of Africa by land something that not so long ago seemed absurd on that train ride Patterson had no idea of the forces already conspiring to prevent that from happening they arrived at Tsavo by sunset of the next day there were some 8,000 Indian laborers or coolies as they were called encamped seven miles from where the tracks ended Patterson didn't want to make his first appearance in the dark of the night the coolies that accompanied Patterson took the railroad house for the night Patterson and the medical officer preferred the cool breeze that accompanied nightfall in the distance he could make out the ice capped peaks of kilimanjaro reflecting a bright crescent moon they slept in a small palm shelter prepared to meet the workforce in the morning that night unlike most of the coming nights was uneventful Lieutenant Colonel Patterson was delighted on day one the coolie laborers were productive and in good spirit some 8,000 of them busied themselves with clearing and flattening a path for the tracks and piling earth while others behind hammered railroad ties spikes and tracks Patterson's first order of business was ordering more tools and supplies from the British command post of Kalindi some halfway between Tsavo and Mombasa he wanted to make sure that no labourer had an excuse to be idle that first afternoon in Tsavo patterson set out nine miles to the river that required a bridge he brought with him a teenage coolie his name had some negative connotation given to him from people who meant no good so Patterson writes that he refused to call him that and refer to him as boy the boy or my boy Patterson seems to have admired the boy who was always eager to keep busy extremely intelligent in his ability to pick up languages and would prove capable of tremendous courage in the saga to come Patterson also mentions he has an undeniable sense of humor Patterson wanted to survey the landscape he knew that he would eventually take a detachment of labourers to build a bridge while the rest of the railway caught up he was no engineer but he wanted to understand the landscape for the logistics of setting up an encampment and supply route it was dark by the time the two returned to camp Patterson was absolutely exhausted as the terrain and climate were less forgiving than he had expected it was that very next morning that Patterson first heard of a lion attack and he entirely dismissed it the imported laborers were paid what translated into a significant salary in their homeland of India many of them had months if not years worth of rupees in their possession many also bought gold and silver as a gold ring is easier to carry and protect than a bag of coins and Patterson strongly suspected that the missing laborer was slain by their own crewmen for what possessions they may have had as there was no body to be found and Patterson notes how easy it would have been to dispose of one one of the first people Patterson met in Tsavo was a man named Singh he was a Sikh and a gem Adar or a member of an ancient class of Indian warriors he wasn't contracted as a laborer rather his role was to serve as a keeper of the peace from both internal and external threats about five days after arriving in Tsavo Patterson could not find Singh who was typically present for their morning meetings when Patterson inquired about Singh's whereabouts he was informed that quote the devil's took him Patterson obviously had not known Singh for a very long time but he found him to be morally upstanding and to be a person of extreme physical and mental discipline Patterson knew it was unlikely that saying would have been victim to thievery he figured most men would not dare tangle with Singh even where he asleep Patterson found this disappearance harder to ignore upon inspection of the Indian officers Hut indeed he found exactly what he should expect to find in the case of a lion attack he found lion prints or pug marks as Patterson would call them deep in the red sand he found large amounts of blood beside them and most chilling perhaps he found human heel and hand impressions from the Warriors obvious attempt to be spared his fate to not be dragged off into the dark the tent from which poor Singh was taken from also housed a dozen laborers who had been keen on sheltering with the warrior they said it was about midnight when the lion had entered the tent and grabbed Singh by the thigh aside from one shout of Koro meaning let go brave Singh never cried out even as the panic-stricken laborers heard him struggle with the lion until both man and beast were out of earshot the laborers seemed to be of the mind that if the strong sikh warrior was not safe who is was he not fighting a lion said one labourer who had tried to grab Singh's hand as he was being dragged into the night that day Patterson and a fellow British officer captain Haslam tracked the predator he said that fortunately and unfortunately it was quite an easy task as the lion stopped frequently to engage in his quote dreadful habit of licking the skin of the prey for easy access to the muscle and tissue after what Patterson called several miles they found sing or what was left of him Patterson said he was broken to pieces in the pugmarks implied that two lions took great excitement in pulling loose their preferred pieces Patterson at Haslem buried the body though Patterson notes that knowing what he would soon learn he would never have focused on digging a hole with his back to the bush that very night Patterson and the boy who Patterson seems to get quite the kick out of made a stand in a dead tree by the tent of the late Jim Adar he was armed with a 303 and a double-barrel shotgun one with balls and one with slug smoothbore Patterson was quite comfortable and quite excited he had not come to Tsavo to hunt lions but at first he was happy to do so of course at this point he still had absolutely no idea the magnitude of the headache that these Lions would prove to be it was nearing midnight when he began to hear the roars obviously two distinct individuals as the roars overlapped each other from the inky scrubland they were followed by a collective sigh and hush from the eight thousand labourers encamped over some eight miles Patterson wondered why they announced their arrival but didn't the night before he also notes that at various points had the Lions not had the foliage and darkness that they enjoyed he could have easily picked them off over the next couple hours the roars were sometimes far and sometimes near sometimes they were so close that he could make out two separate sets of breathing they were that close but he knew a close shot wouldn't cut it and he didn't want to frighten them off and spoil the night's hunting the military side of him disliked that his quarry could be so near yet so secure he knew that an enemy with unencumbered routes is an enemy with an advantage he could feel the tree vibrate as his young companion trembled with fright after almost three hours of ominous roaring all went quiet and Patterson began to wonder if maybe the hunt was over for the night when suddenly the quiet night was shattered by hundreds of screams that grew a wave as eventually the whole camp woke he felt seven miles of screams that night Patterson says that he and his coolie stayed in the tree until morning and he had no intention of making his horrified companion marched through the tall grass after having endured hours of the man-eaters wrathful songs at dawn Patterson went directly to where he heard the screams it was by the railway camp a short walk away from where Patterson spent his first night with his feet beneath the stars a man was dragged out of his tent and consumed a few miles away Patterson was slightly taken aback that after tracking the animal it became apparent that both lions had absolutely not stayed on the periphery of the camp as he had supposed they would before they plucked that particular quote poor wretch they had silently gallivantin well within the interior of the camp silent on the sand and next to invisible in the dark Patterson was surprised that the quote brutes were so unfazed by the sights smells and sounds of human habitation Patterson slept that day and at nightfall made his way to a different tree his coolie brought two goats that were to be used as bait Patterson told the boy to run back to camp he said two people in a tree just made it easier for the Lions to smell the hunter but the truth was he didn't want to put the young man through that again he knew he hadn't gotten any sleep and he needed to rest the Patterson told the boy to sleep in the tent in camp nearest to the tree and to have three coolies there with oil lamps at the ready they were to come running if they heard gunfire Patterson sat in this vigil he was trained on the goats it was past midnight and there were no rowers no noises at all in fact he was beginning to think that the Lions must have had their fill the night prior when he heard screams emanating from within the encampment aggravated Patterson fired into the air to alert boy in the lamp holders he met them halfway and they all set out in the direction of the screams rather easily he found the tent and sure enough Paterson found paw prints and blood and the fingernails of the doomed man buried in the dirt beside them this tent was also not the exterior of the camp in fact the lion must have passed hundreds if not a thousand potential victims before selecting this particular target it was a very random affair he wondered why the previous night the Lions made their presence known by a choir of roars before an attack but this night they had come and gone silently even in just a couple days these quote brutes had demonstrated that they have no discernible rules of engagement nor do they seem to fear mankind Patterson officially postponed railroad work for that day the eight thousand man camp stretched over some eight miles Patterson felt he needed to increase the odds of getting a clear shot he instructed everyone to condense he cut the length of the camp in half and circled it up with a camp only several miles long he felt the odds of getting a shot greatly increased he also set them to work in gathering the plentiful thorn bushes and constructing walls around the perimeter of the camp the natives called these thorn bush walls bomas and some bomas were even constructed around individual tents they busied themselves with gathering plentiful firewood to keep the camp lit all night and hopefully deter the Predators he also employed a system of strings connected to pots and other noisy metal so that the laborers can make continuous noise all night from within the perceived safety of their tents despite these measures there were seven victims in the next eight days Patterson said the Lions had quote an uncanny Faculty for finding out our plans Patterson would intentionally leave one area of the perimeter weaker than the rest then lay in wait there but the Lions would attack directly at the most secure place so Patterson would go there then the lines would hit the weak spot he was not the only one hunting them yet the Lions easily evaded all no shots were fired after several weeks of nightly visitations Patterson decided it was back to work for everyone he was not excited to report to London that progress had all but stopped because he had been spending every night in a tree failing to kill two animals he slept sporadically growing accustomed to only getting a few hours of sleep in the afternoon by night he would perch in a tree and by day he would track them a trail of blood could always be followed from where they dragged some poor soul over or through the boma he said they were rather easy to track as they had a habit of not dispatching their victim until they arrived at wherever they preferred to feast that night he believes that more than once he startled them away from their Bray but the paw prints would eventually lead to the banks of the river for the rocky beach made tracking impossible he says that it was apparent he would not stumble upon them and get a shot while tracking them during the day it was simply impossible to move quietly through the dry grass and thorn bush he was trying to find their den and set some kind of trap there but he wouldn't have any success morale was low for obvious reasons but it was in this time that the labourers camped at Tsavo received something of a spirit boost the Lions had five consecutive days were in their visitations proved unsuccessful Patterson writes that one such occasion involved one of the man-eaters jumping clear through the canvas of a tent that had been fortified with thorn bushes alone in the tent was a Greek engineer named Therma Stickley's papademetriou who abruptly decided he was doomed but the lion grabbed the man's mattress flipped the engineer off it and left with it the next day they found the mattress torn to pieces were the line attempted and eventually gave up trying to pull it through the thorny boma another such incident that the man-eaters failed to live up to their name involved a traitor from India who was on his way to sell familiar spices to the labourers in Tsavo he was walking alongside his donkey in broad daylight when one of the Lions pounced but the lion somehow snared its foot in the donkey's rains and it realized that wherever he went the donkey was dragged along with him the line apparently thought it was being chased and sprinted into the bush still dragging the poor beast of burden behind it the trader went up a tree where he remained for over 24 hours until he met more travelers coming down the trail another such example occurred when one of the Lions left through an air vent in a large tent housing some 20 coolies the lion grabbed a man-sized sack of rice and left with it a trail of rice could be followed the next morning for over a mile as rice seeped out of it apparently not long after the lion left with the sack the coolies heard the lion roaring and they perceived the roars to be a fit of rage and realizing that it could not eat its prize these failures of the Lions broke the tensions a bit in Patterson's words it quote eased the nerves but as suddenly as the debacles began the man-eaters once again lived up to their names the indians called them ghosts the mullah genes called them Devils and the Africans simply called them lions all the while Patterson had slept in a palm hut the nearest 10th was 25 yards away as he liked his privacy and felt it necessary to keep his distance from the general population he had no boma and he wasn't afraid of cats his hut was a structure of wooden beams and a thick palm leaf shingled roof with a sturdy wood frame one rare night that Patterson wasn't out hunting he was in his hut with a medical officer named dr. rose they heard movement outside Patterson thought it was a labourer looking for valuables or a private food reserve dr. Rose had an oil lamp and Patterson had a smoothbore but they saw nothing and the noises stopped after they had investigated the light of day revealed plug marks from two individuals that had made ever closer loops around the hut Paterson thought he would have noticed paw prints so he believes the Lions continued to stalk even after he and Rose investigated Paterson doesn't explicitly say this but there seems to be a shift in his retelling of events at this point a shift towards seeing the Lions more as a threat to himself than simply a threat to his laborers and overall project completion he said the hut he was in was sturdy and a far greater barrier to entry than the innumerable canvas tents but he notes that though the walls were strong a determined lion is far stronger and apparently this incident had a strong enough impact on Paterson to get him to move he relocated his residence to the medical enclosure which was a boma within a boma more or less the field hospital had perhaps the strongest fortification Paterson said it had a 70 yard diameter and it was considered to be a safe haven but Paterson would soon learn that these lions had little respect for high walls and hospitals he said he and dr. Brock would sit outside the boma by day and tried to read or write but he said it took a great deal of focus and discipline to keep his eyes on the page the urge to scrutinize the tanzy of grass was too strong Paterson tells us that the Lions still entered the encampment more nights than not and they were successful more nights than they weren't still though work progressed he mentions the only comfort the laborers found was in the statistics of it all there were thousands of people on the site and the Lions had yet to take more than one man a night it had been about two months since the first attack and the laborers took solace in the fact that the odds of being next were actually quite slim but that all changed when the time came to construct the bridge of the tsavo River the permanent works as Paterson called it Paterson moved ahead to the banks of the river to begin construction on the bridge while the rest completed the railroad leading up to it Paterson had with him a few medical officers and only 3,000 of the more coolies who were Masons and builders by trade every man in Patterson's smaller company hoped the Lions would stay behind with the larger group but of course they didn't the laborers didn't like that their nightly odds fell from one and eight thousand to one in three thousand before any work began on the bridge Patterson ensured the bridge encampment was fortified so they spent the first day near the river hacking and burning grass to deny the Lions their cover they made an entirely joined boma around the sleeping area and again stocked wood for large fires to burn at night he told the coolies that three thousand people can make a smaller more defensible camp than the five thousand left behind and the Lions would naturally target the weaker camp Patterson set up his residence within the confines of the field hospital but regardless of the efforts the first night in that place yielded a casualty a hospital attendant was exiting his tent to relieve himself when one of the Lions confronted him the attendant was only spared because he tripped over a table as the lion advanced this knocked over pans and glass containers and the noise sent the lion sauntering off but only seconds later the lion jumped through an air vent into the main hospital tent he injured two on his landing and took one to the grave Patterson writes that the poor man had grabbed a table in an attempt to be spared his fate the table was found embedded deep in the boma he held it as long as he could Patterson spent the next night in a tree nearby the hospital enclosure armed and ready he knew with a smaller perimeter his odds also increased again it was midnight when Patterson was alerted to the screaming of a man from somewhere that he wasn't it was on the opposite side from his perch upon arriving on scene Patterson made the grave observation that the Lions plucked a man whose sole function in Tsavo was to carry water on this particularly morbid occasion the lion decided to drag his prey through the boma not over it the poor laborer had grabbed his tent in the fight for his life and the lion dragged his victim and the tent all the way through the boma the site was a reminder of how sharp the thorns were the tent was entangled and Patterson said it was a gruesome scene he would find the man some weeks later in a search for the Lions Den the man was identified only by a distinct silver ring perhaps the only object of value he'd ever owned as far as work was concerned progress was slow many of the coolies who were employed as higher paid masons clearly had never touched a chisel in their lives which Patterson describes as perhaps even more aggravating than the Lions another couple of months passed somehow or another the crew began to create something that began to resemble a bridge despite on-and-off attacks one day a man in route to the bridge camp was attacked he was on the only path to her from the bridge encampment and he had a wagon packed with food water and medical supplies he managed to make it up a tree but a goat wasn't so lucky Patterson and the medical officer dr. Brock decided to set a trap Patterson reinforced the wagon by a fixing a wagon of the same style to the top of it it was not unlike a coffin he said Patterson and dr. Brock who at this point was sick of this particular cause of death planned to hide out in the wagon with goats directly in view and any lion that came to eat the goats would be stopped during the day Patterson Brock the boy and some coolies took the Enhanced cart and goats to the location of the first time the wagon was attacked Patterson wanted to draw attention to the trap as it had become evident that the Lions were not deterred by human sounds and in fact were very much attracted to them the coolies leashed the goats in perfect aim of the hunters and went back to the camp by the river the night dragged on and of course there was no moon or stars it was not long before they heard noises of course the box they were in played tricks on the men's ear the noises were so subtle that the two men began to bicker about what was a lion and what was an insect jumping when all of a sudden dr. Brock said he saw a dark splotch through the grass Patterson also saw it but said it was a shadow but Brock insisted it wasn't there a moment ago Patterson Believe It or Not wanted to go out and poke it just to prove it was nothing when it's spraying both men fired in tandem Patterson said it was the loudest noise he had ever heard simultaneous gunfire within that casket the irony wasn't lost on Patterson that in setting their trap they themselves had become fish in a barrel after the bang the Beast fled Brock thought one of them must have hit it but Patterson knew right away that they hadn't he knew the sound of a bullet hitting tissue and he didn't hear it they waited for daylight to exit their box both men knew that the lion was obviously hunting them and not the goats and neither man was willing to put anything past these lions at daybreak both men could still not hear correctly from the echo of the discharge of their weapons in the small box and Patterson mentions that he could hardly bend his legs but indeed they found paw prints and one bullet in the ground and not a drop of blood the bullet was Brock's and Patterson never found his slug Patterson laments that they should have waited a fraction of a second longer to shoot and surely that would have solved half their lion problem - the hunters absolute shock it wasn't until they exited the box that they realized that one of the goats was gone and lion prints lay beside where it was neither of the men saw it happen even though their eyes were peeled from only 15 feet away Patterson mentions that perhaps they actually were hunting ghosts and though they were unsuccessful that night the Lions would not appear at the river camp for two months they set the trap in April and they wouldn't hear of the line again until July some of the coolies believed that Patterson or Brock must have shot and killed one of the Lions Patterson didn't argue with them but he knew that was impossible as not a drop of blood was to be at the wagon nor as far as the beasts could be tracked and of course Patterson was informed that five men had been taken in seven days at the larger of the divided workforce but he didn't mention that to the bridge builders but in July the Lions returned to the bridge camp and they did so with vengeance since it had been sixty days with no lion activity some of the coolies were sleeping under the stars as they felt the Lions that either died or permanently moved on but it was around midnight when a group of coolies were awakened by the screams of one of their own one of the Lions grabbed some poor fellow and seemed to take his time looking for the spot he wanted to climb over the boma with his prize the laborers in what Patterson calls a rare moment of courage actually rose to encircle the line against the boma launching stones flaming pieces of wood and even a couple Gemma dars with rifles shot at it but as patient as it was deadly the lion found his preferred spot and left over it with grace Patterson notes that almost as if to add insult to injury the Lions consumed their prey not far from the boma Patterson who attract them far too many times knew that they typically took their prey five to seven miles into the bush but on this occasion they consumed their meal with an ear shot of the camp not much further than a stone's throw Patterson said thousands heard the dreadful details of their dinner so clear were these sounds in the still night that the GEMA DARS climbed the boma themselves and shot into the dark so certain they knew where the Lions were but no shot took effect but Patterson didn't bother he knew that a general direction means nothing to a bullet in a sea of dark grass after this incident the attacks resumed with even greater ferocity than before the wagon debacle the Lions also picked up their habit of roaring to alert their coming something they had not done since the camp's split up Patterson writes quote in the whole of my life I have never experienced anything more nerve shaking than to hear the deep roars of these dreadful monsters growing gradually knee and to know that someone or other of us was assumed when the roars would begin Patterson writes that he would hear the coolies mutter in their native tongues beware brothers the Devils are coming beware the ghosts are here Patterson said that this is the first time that he truly and personally felt demoralized hopeless is the word he used he now had a total of ten months of this issue and he had put far more effort into stopping these creatures than he had put into the actual job he was sent to do and he had exactly zero success this was intensified one night when a man was taken and the lion consumed their meal so close to the boma that Patterson believes that they must have been less than fifty feet away but he never took a shot fearing that a premature shot may spoil the chance of them being there when the Sun rose and he could get a better shot so all Patterson could do was listen but of course they left before dawn over a thousand laborers left by this point they were at-will employees of the British East Africa trade company and were free to come and go as they please no one slept well no one focused on work Patterson's hopelessness turned into desperation and he wrote to Mombasa he was answered by a district officer mr. Whitehead who fancied himself as something of a big-game hunter and he planned to arrive with a group of ascaris soldiers of an ancient tradition of the native people part of their indoctrination was in fact slaying a lion these men had a millennia of lion hunting in their blood Whitehead had wrote to Patterson that he would arrive late on December second by the morning of December 3rd Whitehead was nowhere to be found but that afternoon white had arrived at the bridge encampment Patterson writes that white had said a nice reception you give a fellow when you invite him to dinner Patterson replied why what's up and white had said that a lion nearly did him in Patterson said he must have been dreaming when white had loosed the buttons of his shirt to reveal claw marks below his armpit Patterson was so skeptical that he even inspected the for hoaxing but he had witnessed more lion wounds than any one man should in a hundred lifetimes and it was immediately clear that these wounds were in fact from one of his lions in fact he even thought he could tell which one when Whitehead arrived at the end of the train line he and his assistant a man named Abdullah scouted ahead a bit while the ascaris unloaded the train when with no warning one of the Lions pounced the barrel of whiteheads rifle was all that stood between his throat and lethal teeth white had pulled the trigger and the lion retreated but not before it turned its attention to whiteheads assistant poor Abdullah had nothing more to say than master a lion before he was taken into the grass he was never recovered one way or another white head and line hunters stayed in the rail house that night the Sun had set and no one was walking 13 miles to the bridge encampment by the river until the Sun came up Patterson was stunned but still refreshed at whiteheads attitude the tediousness of it all had staled the issue long ago for Patterson but Whitehead was as determined as Patterson had been on day one Patterson had been working on a trap for some time it was inspired by a mechanism described by some coolies who had similar devices for Tigers Patterson came up with a box made of railroad ties with strong timber doors the box was separated in the middle by a guillotine like slotted door the point was for the lion to sneak in after prey and the door would shut behind it and the line would be unable to retreat or advance and it would be shot Patterson was confident that Whitehead could mount an efficient nightly defense while Patterson tried out his trap he was the first to spend a night in the box it was inside the boma with a tent drawn over it the tent entrance leading directly into the trap he had fallen asleep when dawn brought distance screams that made clear that the trap had failed to capture the Beast that night the second night Patterson went hunting with whitehead and put no less than four coolies inside the box each with a rifle Patterson had swung a sledgehammer on the separation door to prove to the coolies that though close to the Beast they would be safe from its reach and a four men with four rifles at least one would strike true as the quarry would be at most a mere five feet away Patterson was on a scaffolding he built inside the boma his first awareness of anything going on was the distinct clunk of the door of the trap Patterson said his first inclination was relief he writes at last one of the brutes is done for he thought he could hear the lion enraged at finding no way out slamming at the bars and roaring frantically but there was no gunfire the camp erupted with men yelling shoot shoot it in various languages Patterson agonized almost an entire minute before the first shots rang out he had sight of the trap but it was concealed in the tent furthering Patterson's agony he heard multiple bullets whizzed past him he was at a right angle to the trap so that offered no comfort that the Cooley's in the trap had any idea what they were doing a stray bullet pierced the lever that kept the entrance gate closed and the lion pushed through went over the boma and was gone so confident that four men could shoot a caged animal from four feet that he never took aim and had they not been shooting so erratically he simply would have approached and shot it through the bars Patterson writes how they failed to kill him several times over is and always will be a complete mystery to me days passed with no sight or sound of the Lions until finally Patterson was informed that the lion was eating a donkey by the river Patterson knew the area well and he gathered a great deal of coolies with pans and shovels and picks to flush the creature out into a clearing Patterson got into position and the coolies did indeed flush the line out of the bush Patterson was 15 yards away when he pulled the trigger but the gun didn't shoot the lion took a step toward him and growled but thought better of it once Cooley's began to emerge from the brush again that should have been the end of half of his lion problem that night Patterson was in a tree with a field of view of the length of the boma he was alone and his mind was bombarded with all the previous failures of these lions and all the previous failures of his life but none stung more than the failure of that morning it's easy to see why he might feel that way he describes this night in the tree as a rather dreamlike he felt not entirely awake nor asleep he said that as he sat in that tree he simply became part of the African landscape as usual it was about midnight when he heard what he thought was a football he waited no more unnerved than he was before he heard it it was expected and typical then he heard a twig break and then silence for an hour he was beginning to think that perhaps he didn't hear the line at all when suddenly he was struck on the back of the head but it was an owl he had been so still that the bird must have thought he was part of the tree I'm sure he felt like part of the tree not long after the owl departed Patterson heard a long slow sigh a breathy exhale he had heard it before and he knew it was a lion and he knew the lion that made it was close he saw movement though he didn't move his head sure enough he made out a shape very near his stand he still didn't move his head he knew the lion did not know it was spotted or else it would have made its move one way or another he also knew that it could easily pounce twelve feet or more and that he was close to striking distance he swung his 303 and the lion instantly sprang Patterson shot once and then again and then again the weapons bang and recoil made Patterson lose his visual but he liked what he heard it thrashed and clearly fell over wood scrambled to its feet and fall over again its roars were interrupted by hisses and whimpers so evident was the creatures peril that the Cooley's behind the boma to cheer as for the first time the sounds of death were in their favor and though there was no body to be found there were large amounts of blood no one slept that night all the cultures convened at that wild place celebrated into the morning Patterson was perhaps the only man present who wasn't celebrating he knew these creatures had a terrible habit of defying all odds he writes that he wanted to track it then and there but decided to wait until the light of day he knew that no beast is more dangerous than a dying beast so he waited until morning fortunately Patterson says that tracking the Beast was a delight the path was thick with blood and Patterson didn't have to go far only a hundred feet from the tree Patterson found the maneater he said when he first spotted it he was gripped by panic as if even death could not stop this devil's tricks but indeed it was very dead just a dead cat it was nine feet eight inches long and took eight men to carry him his skin was gnarled by scars from climbing through and over the boma so many times Patterson said the least he could do was to keep the laborers from trying to tear off pieces of the lion to be used as relics or keepsakes throughout the course of his writings Patterson said he was in awe of the Lions they frustrated him they angered him they astounded him and they even frightened him but he never said he hated them no work was to be done that day only celebration no one mentioned that his companion remained very much at large but Patterson writes quote very soon he was going to make us unpleasantly aware of that fact then there was ten days of no lion activity no doubt the remaining lion was coming to terms with a solitary lifestyle his new norm but on the eleventh day a British Inspector General said that he was awoken to what he thought was the sound of coolies rummaging through his supplies outside the inspector yelled for them to go away and the noise stopped but in the morning he found a ground around his hut marinated with potpourri he said he almost went out to discipline what he thought were coolies but he was glad he didn't the line had took a goat from near the inspectors Hut and had partially eaten it nearby the combination of the Inspector General yelling instead of going outside and vanir by goat probably saved his life Patterson went to the site and believes his arrival frightened the line away from the goat as it was only partially consumed and the lion didn't seem to think it had time to take the goat with him Patterson put to live goats near the partially consumed one in easy range of one of his favorite tree stands but it was a dark night the moon was hidden and there were no stars he thought he heard a grunt and maybe he saw a shadow either way morning revealed a missing goat and he didn't get a shot in the morning Patterson followed the trail made easier by the fresh goat that the lion carried off again he must have interrupted the Lions meal Patterson said that he and his company were stopped when the bush erupted with roars and growls but they saw nothing Patterson said he was simultaneously impressed and unimpressed at how quickly his support managed to climb a tree after firing shots into the air and with great care they found the goat that the line abandoned but the lion never showed itself Patterson erected his scaffolding by the goat the night was dark even darker than last it was just after midnight when they heard it just a twig break than just a blade of grass crinkle he saw a great shape loping from behind the scaffolding toward the goat as it had successfully done the previous night but this night it wasn't so lucky Patterson fired both barrels the brute went down for a moment it hissed but it swiftly retreated before Patterson could get any shots off his carbine but still Patterson was pleased there was a good amount of blood on the scene and he was hopeful that daylight would reveal a corpse nearby but it wasn't to be and the blood trail ended quickly again the lion wouldn't show himself for ten days but on the tenth night screams erupted from a community and Patterson said that night was quote unnaturally dark and even walking to the tent with an oil lamp was a challenge so all Patterson could do was fire shots into the air fortunately the coolies managed to drive it off without sustaining any casualties Patterson was emboldened by the fact that it was driven off without any victims maybe it was shaken by the loss of its companion or maybe it was badly wounded from the shot ten days before or maybe both the next night Patterson tried once more he said he was sleep-deprived and having fits of fever he had the boy with him as he needed someone to keep him alert but not annoy him Patterson said he actually drifted off to sleep when the boy tugged his arm but Patterson knew better than to jerk to alertness he opened his eyes without moving his body and scanned the landscape amazingly he saw the lion because that night was like no other the moon was nearly full and the stars were dazzlingly bright and there was not a cloud in the sky the bright night would prove the undoing of the second maneater Patterson knew that on previous hunts he would have had no visual at this range but on this night he could make out every detail and even better still the lion did not know it was spotted it had yet to realize that it lost its cloak of darkness and its primary advantage was gone Patterson said this was the first time he observed the maneater at work Patterson writes his skill showed that he was an old hand at the terrible game of man hunting were at any other night the lion would have been invisible as usual but this night Patterson could make out every single detail he said it was awe-inspiring to watch it move in stealth mode he said it utilized every spot of firm earth to quiet its foot it slunk behind every bush it never went than a few paces without stopping to determine its next move it was cautious and calculating and as it circled in with ever shortening loops Patterson realized it wasn't interested in the goat that night I'm sure Patterson wondered if lions have a concept of revenge he waited until it was closer than it needed to be he guessed its next steps and when it made them Patterson fired five shots with his 303 British the magazine gun as he sometimes called it he knew that the first round hit and so did the last two the lion didn't go down and galloped into the night crying out in a way unique to the mortally wounded there was no knockdown effect but Patterson knew from the amount of blood on the ground that the end was near he slept on the scaffolding that night Patterson said it was the best sleep he'd gotten since arriving in Africa some 11 months ago in the morning tracking was brief and though the Lions body was broken its rage remained fully intact they had gone less than a mile when a growl pierced the morning air its meaning was obvious I can go no further so you should come no closer they only went a few more steps when they saw him hunkered in a thick thorn bush just his head was sticking out and Patterson said that it was showing its tusks just as Patterson took aim with his 303 British the Beast charged Patterson shot it went down but got up and continued Patterson fired again again the Beast fell but once more rose Patterson fired twice more with his 303 and though he hit it these rounds had no effect so he dropped it and reached out for his gun bearers martini-henry breech-loader but there was no gun and no gun bearer either in fact both his gun bear and Swahili tracker were already up a tree Patterson had no choice but to follow suit as the line would have been on him by the time he picked up and shouldered the 303 he dropped had his shots from the night prior and then the shot from eleven days before that not broken the Lions hind and fore leg he says he never would have made it to the tree time but that lion with two broken legs lunged at the tree but its injuries were Grievous and its range failed in one last-ditch attempt to get at his assailants with a broken body but strong mind the lion tried to halt itself up the tree swiping at Patterson missing his boots by inches but its suffering would not go on much longer as Patterson retrieved the martini-henry breech-loader and ended the story 25 years after the fact Paterson sold the pelts and skulls to the Field Museum in Chicago he sold them for $2,500 apiece the Field Museum notes that the hides were not preserved properly and thus significantly shrunk as they dehydrated so the Lions actually appear substantially smaller than they were in life these lines were quite large one was 3 feet and 11 and a half inches tall at the shoulder and the other was 3 foot 9 inches at the shoulder Patterson never weighed them but based on similar specimens they likely weighed between 350 and 400 pounds Patterson says they were both just under 10 feet long from snout to tail meaning from snout to rump they were likely just under 7 feet in length the Lions did not have Mane's though they were both male both were well-fed and healthy short of the respect of injuries that led to their termination Patterson said he was personally aware of and involved with 135 human casualties committed by the Lions but he mentions he wouldn't be surprised if their actual count was far greater more like 300 as many people simply vanished and he had no way of keeping track of victims from surrounding communities of course has always happens skepticism sets in after the fact did these two lions really prey on between 100 and 300 people in less than a year modern research and the general consensus says no but I think 300 is a far more likely number and there's evidence to support that the field museum conducted an isotopic analysis of the lions bone collagen and hair keratin they only examined organic matter that would have grown in the year prior to their demise they were looking for the density of particular signatures that can only come from prey items that ate meat so therefore unless these Lions were binge eating leopards the only prey they ate that should eat meat would have been humans they concluded that in the year leading up to their deaths 70% of their diet was consistent with grazing herbivores and 30% comprised of creatures on the omnivore carnivore range dependent on the estimated mass of human tissue consumed and the Lions energy output the scientists assess that one lion had the equivalent of ten and a half human's worth of meat and the other lion ate 24.2 worth of human meat so the Field Museum estimates that the Lions collectively dispatched about 35 people but this study has some big problems first off the isotopic signatures looked for in the analysis were left behind by prey items with a carnivorous or omnivorous diet but in Patterson's narrative he often laments at how many of the laborers were vegetarian virologist reasons and he mentions how the Hindu workers didn't eat cow and even more laborers wouldn't eat meat unless they witnessed how the meat was slaughtered therefore many if not most of the people consumed by the Lions may not have left behind the isotopic signature that the study quantified in short the laborers weren't eating a lot of meat if they ate any at all so the analysis really doesn't prove much the second problem is that the study assumed that the lions ate a significant portion of their prey perhaps they did consume 35 humans worth of meat but off of how many humans total the study assumes that the Lions consumed all the usable tissue of an individual but of course Patterson notes that this was rarely the case in fact they were incredibly finicky about what they ate evidence of this can be found when Patterson writes how he often received inquiries demanding he explained why he didn't just poison them but Patterson writes that he certainly did try poison but they were so selective about what they would eat from humans and livestock that the odds of ingesting poison or at least a lethal dose of poison were extremely slim the Lions would not consume enough of a meal in one sitting to ingest a lethal dose of poison so if the study thought each human prey item yielded 30 pounds of flesh per victim with the Lions actually only ate three pounds of flesh per victim then the number becomes a bit more like what we should expect from Patterson's narrative which brings me to my next point why did these Lions exhibit man-eating behavior most big cat researchers used to believe that big cats became man-eaters once they grew too weak or injured to take down their normal prey but that becomes less and less the case as more data is compiled the field museums analysis states that approximately 30 percent of the lions diet in the ten months before their deaths comprised of human meat the 70% being more expected grazing animals many biologists agree that they were likely supplementing their normal diet with easier bipedal prey when they had no luck with their normal prey hair embedded in the Lions molars indicate that they were eating gazelle Impala and African Buffalo so I don't really think this was entirely predatory these Lions were obviously capable of dispatching large grazing animals as that was 70% of their diet the scientists assessed that one of the Lions had a tooth infection and that may be a factor of why they became man-eaters as obviously human heid would be easier to process than large herbivores but many Lions of tooth infections and are not man-eaters in fact fossils show us that feline can live long and accomplished lives with tooth infections if every large predator with a tooth infection became a maneater we would be in serious trouble I've done some research on YouTube and more than a few videos on the tsavo man-eaters say that Patterson was likely exaggerating never let facts get in the way of a good story right but the truth is this kind of conflict is actually not uncommon in 1907 a Bengal tigress was responsible for over 430 deaths in Nepal the issue was so severe that the Nepalese and British armies dispatched until the tigress was terminated by naturalist Jim Corbett in 1910 a leopard was attributed for the deaths of over 400 people in India they were mostly children and there are numerous other individual big cats with high counts estimates are always difficult and there is no consensus but biologists claim that between 70 and 250 people are killed by lions every year these numbers may be even larger when you consider that the areas that these predatory events are most likely to occur are also the area's least likely to file reports to any academic or natural resource department not to mention if the lion is good at man eating someone just disappears and there is no reason to suspect it was a lion at all so why are people so skeptical about the high numbers I think that sometimes people forsake facts in the name of conservation we've sanitized the wild it makes it easier to protect and value the truth is these two lines determined a way to supplement their normal diet with easy meals as any cat owner can attest occurs but when you're talking about 800 pounds of predator it becomes the stuff of nightmares and no one likes to think that their childhood icon may eat them or even just kill for fun I think another reason that some people tend to have a knee-jerk skepticism to the claim of 300 victims is due to unrealistic expectations of a situation that very few of us can imagine it's so easy to think I wouldn't let it drag me away or I would have slept with a pistol or knife in my hand because it's not like the lines or quick about the ordeal Patterson notes how the Lions possessed a habit of not terminating their victims for some time as their screams could be heard as they faded into the landscape I'd probably have some difficulty getting a real lion to cooperate so I used Google's new augmented reality tool to generate a scale model of Patterson 2nd lion AFM NH 2 3 9 7 0 it stood just over three feet and 11 inches tall at the shoulder the shoulder measurement is always used because the Lions typical locomotive fashion is level to the floor but obviously the height increases a bit depending on the pose or posture Lions can sprint 50 miles per hour and a typical fast pace for a lion is about 35 miles per hour so in an armchair skeptic is in disbelief that out of 300 plus victims not one was able to deliver a debilitating blow keep in mind that their victims were outsized by three or four times that's like having your leg caught in a vise and that vise was attached to a car driving between 30 and 50 miles per hour through hard earth and thorns in total darkness this story is unique among mammal predation events because of the proximity of it all it's easier to imagine a human lion predation event wherein a person is alone stalked and jumped but many of these victims were surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of other people it's hard to envision being taken away with so much help so close and yet nothing could be done this story if nothing else is a reminder that humans even in our masses and organizational structures are still on the food chain and that it almost seems as if Nature has a will to remain wild anyway if you made it through to the end it's much appreciated this video just kind of kept going and I'm actually a little skeptical that anyone is still here with me let me know if you liked this video and how you felt about the topic and longer format make sure you subscribe for updates and as always thanks an awful lot for listening

Channel: Bob Gymlan

Views: 484,977

Rating: 4.9444594 out of 5

Keywords: lions of tsavo, man eating lions of tsavo, historical account, male asmr, asmr story, bedtime stories, stories to fall asleep, bigfoot, sasquatch, cryptozoology, scary true stories, paranormal, John Henry Patterson, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, lion attack, scary documentary, scary documentaries, paranormal documentaries, interesting documentaries, interesting documentars, scary true docs, animal attack, illustrated stories, bob gymlan

Id: mAKxcNQpiSg

Length: 58min 53sec (3533 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 24 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Ozwaldo]

Not sure if it's mentioned since this is a damn hour-long YouTube video, but The Ghost and The Darkness is a siiick movie about these lions starring Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas

[u/MacStylee]

I've not heard of these lions, nor have I watched this massive youtube.

But I'm betting the lions had a very reasonable excuse.

[u/rocopotomus74]

Have been fascinated by this for over 20 years. A dream of mine is to visit the lair in Tzavo and the Chicago field museum to see then stuffed lions