No Beast So Fierce: The Champawat Tiger and Her Hunter, the First Tiger Conservationist Paperback – February 7, 2020

Great book. Great writing! Opens up a world I am unfamiliar with. I have just started reading and cannot put it down!

Part social history, part natural history, part conservation treatise, part detective story, No Beast So Fierce is a comprehensive description of the reign of terror one tigress had over sections of Nepal and India at the turn of the twentieth century. I had come across mentions of the Champawat Tiger several times in my reading, and since my reading was in fiction, I wasn't aware that this tigress was real. When I stumbled across Huckelbridge's book, I knew I had to read it, especially since tigers are one of my two favorite big cats.One of the most important things Huckelbridge did for me in his book was to give me a much greater respect for tigers. I knew they were marvelous creatures but didn't really understand just how wonderful they are. A tiger is "nature's nearest equivalent to a short-range missile," and to put what the Champawat Tiger did into perspective, she "very nearly consumed the entire NBA."Hearing this, many people would want nothing more than to kill the tigress and put an end to the whole thing. Done and dusted. No more thought required. The second important thing Huckelbridge does in No Beast So Fierce is to prove that the Champawat Tiger was an entirely man-made disaster. Through many thoughtless government decisions, the tigress's killing field was created, and for anyone interested in the natural world, it is fascinating to read how this was done.The third important thing that Huckelbridge did was to bring Jim Corbett to my attention. The final scenes where he and the Champawat Tiger meet are extremely tense and almost gave me the impression that I'd fallen into a thriller, and although his success meant that Corbett became the Go-To man for tracking and killing man-eaters, fate had much more in store for him. Corbett wasn't just a killer. In fact, he became one of the stalwarts of the conservation effort to save the Royal Bengal tiger.If you love wildlife and want to immerse yourself in an engrossing piece of history, I suggest reading No Beast So Fierce. It's an eye-opener and proves once again that if some species of wildlife becomes a "problem" we humans need to look to ourselves to see what we did to create it.

A fine book written in historical context, yet thrilling like a mystery, and inspirational in terms of conservation and what one modest man has done for saving lives of people as well as of the species that terrorized terrorized them. A great treatise about man vs. nature. You both cheer for the killing of the beast while feeling sorry for it. I had no idea this book would be so good. I read it in just three days.

When I saw Dane Huckelbridge's book online about Jim Corbett's hunt for the Champawat man-eating tiger, I wanted to purchase and read it. I enjoy reading anything about the man I've admired for over 50 years since reading Corbett's thrilling book "Man-eaters of Kumoan." I also wanted to compare Dane's account of the hunt with mine in my dramatized biography, "Jim Corbett, Master of the Jungle" published by Safari Press. Huckelbridge is a very accomplished writer who uses exemplary prose. His extensive research, interviews, and travels that went into this book are admirable. He devotes most of the book defining the causes that have led many tigers resort to eating human flesh, to include injury, old age, insufficient natural prey, and loss of habitat Habitat loss and human population growth are the primary problems hurting tiger survival in the wild. India's population was about 250 million people in 1900. Today it is around 1.5 billion people, or seven times greater. India's land area is roughly one-third of the United States, which currently has about 340 million people. Imagine 1.5 billion people compressed into one-third of the U.S.! Allowing enough area needed fir agriculture, mining, lakes, rivers, etc., it wouldn't leave much room for tigers. As solitary animals that don't play well with others, tigers require extensive habitat to survive successfully. Although India has designated 54 tiger preserves throughout its country, how much longer will India be able to keep them intact before needing the land for its growing human population? I enjoyed reading Dane's book and I encourage others to publicize Jim Corbett's heroic deeds, as well as the plight of tigers in the wild.

The book is great, well worth the money. It was just thrown in a box that was too big so it rattled around. One corner was bent.

Background of tiger habitats and its loss, decline and almost extinction with historical anecdotes make for a compelling reading. The depiction of the hunt in the final chapters holds one’s attention and portrayed as authentic as possible as if the author was an eyewitness.

For starters, only the second half of the book involves Jim Corbett. The first half is more a historical overview of India and Nepal and an explanation of what forces influenced the development of maneaters in greater abundance at the turn of the century. This was all very interesting and in some ways essential to the plot, but if you're expecting a book purely about Jim Corbett stalking a killer tiger, you're going to be disappointed until roughly mid-way through. At that point though, the narative shifts to more of less non-fiction/historical fiction and it became exactly what I was looking for.

Loved this book. It goes over a lot of history about humans have chased tigers from their habitat as they’ve settled further and further into jungle/forest land and then recounts the story of this specific tiger. It places focus on the fact that humans largely caused a cascade of effects that resulted in this tiger’s learned behavior to stalk humans and highlights the importance of tigers to their native ecosystem and how humans can help them return from very endangered status. The first part of the book was a bit slow, building background and history, but the second half was a very fast, exciting read.

I was fascinated by the abilities of tigers, but the historical context that explained the rise of a tiger to man eater. Insights into colonialism and the natural balance disrupted by man’s greed

Great book! No beast so fierce… excepting my wife ;)

Edge of your seat thriller!!Lovers of Jim Corbett's books will once again be totally captivated!

Un relato fascinante

This is a very good book. It provides sufficient background information on the cultural and social significance of the tiger hunt and its context based on the early 1900s period in which the events occurred. The biography of the man who would eventually take down the man-eater is interesting and gives the reader some insight that helps the narrative along.The final 40 pages are enough to consume the reader to the point where you will not want to put it down.