Peter Boomgaard
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300085396
- eISBN:
- 9780300127591
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300085396.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter reviews data about man-eating tigers that suggests an inverse linear relationship between population densities and per capita numbers of people killed by tigers. In areas with low ...
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This chapter reviews data about man-eating tigers that suggests an inverse linear relationship between population densities and per capita numbers of people killed by tigers. In areas with low population densities, the number of people killed by tigers was relatively high. The numbers of people killed by tigers per unit of land had a curvilinear relationship to population densities. Thus, in low- and high-population density areas, the probability of being killed by a tiger, expressed per unit of land, was low. The chapter also finds that man-eating as a specialized activity of decrepit individuals or of those who have no alternative prey available is probably a modern phenomenon, in Java perhaps not older than the 1870s, where it came into being when the tigers were about to disappear.Less
This chapter reviews data about man-eating tigers that suggests an inverse linear relationship between population densities and per capita numbers of people killed by tigers. In areas with low population densities, the number of people killed by tigers was relatively high. The numbers of people killed by tigers per unit of land had a curvilinear relationship to population densities. Thus, in low- and high-population density areas, the probability of being killed by a tiger, expressed per unit of land, was low. The chapter also finds that man-eating as a specialized activity of decrepit individuals or of those who have no alternative prey available is probably a modern phenomenon, in Java perhaps not older than the 1870s, where it came into being when the tigers were about to disappear.
