A tiger which was said to be terrorising people in the jungles of Kumaon about 92 years ago was shot by a British couple during 1925 in the Haldwani forest division and though an obelisk had also been erected in their memory, till now this incident had not been otherwise substantiated.
However, now with a wildlife expert from Jharkhand providing books written by the British couple narrating the incident, the forest department plans to display old documents from England and interesting information about this in the museum situated in Nandhaur wildlife sanctuary.
The Haldwani divisional forest officer Chandrashekhar Sanwal said that EA Smythies was posted as the DFO here from 1920 to 1921 and later from 1924 to 1926. He and his wife Olive Smythies were believed to have shot a problem tiger in this region in 1925 but there was little to substantiate this belief until now apart from an inscription on a pillar. The documents from England and information received now by the department will be put up for display at the museum in Jaulasal range of Nandhaur wildlife sanctuary.
Sanwal said that during the colonial era, the British created the Haldwani forest division in 1911 out of one of the oldest forest divisions of India- the Kumaon forest division which had very dense forest area. This region used to have a high tiger population at that time when the locals periodically used to face the terror of big cats becoming problem animals or turning man-eaters. In 1925, the Jaulasal area was reportedly terrorised by a tiger with all attempts to tackle the problem tiger failing. The then DFO EA Smythies decided to shoot the said tiger. He and his wife Olive Smythies climbed atop two machans about 14 feet high and waited for their chance to kill the tiger. He shot first and missed after which she shot at him once and missed and second time. The tiger then went for her climbing the tree on which the machan had been set. She was seen with the muzzle of her gun in the tiger’s mouth when she pulled the trigger and had a misfire. The struggle involving the tiger and the woman caused the machan to break as a result of which the big cat and woman fell down on the ground. The big cat was later spotted by one of the staff lying dead nearby. Sanwal further informs that during 1925, the forest department contractors and staff had also constructed an obelisk in the memory of the Smythies but apart from that there was little concrete information about the incident. The obelisk states that it is “in memory of bravery displayed by Mrs EA Smythies in her hand to hand fight with a tiger on 30/12/25 and in thankfulness for her deliverance from the great danger”.
Wildlife expert from Jharkhand, Raza Qazmi managed to source two books from Britain, written by the Smythies couple. A Tiger That Climbed a Tree was written by EA Smythies and published in 1936 while Tiger lady: Adventures in the Indian Jungle by Olive Smythies was published in 1953. Sanwal said that there is interesting information about the forests of Jaulasal in these books. Along with it, old documents from England will also be displayed at the museum in Nandhaur wildlife sanctuary, he added.