Tiger kills, eats man in Nakhon Ratchasima

A tiger has killed and partially eaten a man in Thap Lan National Park in the northeastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima. Local villagers have been warned not to enter the park after a man was mauled to death.

46 year old Jamras Phumwaengkuang was in the forest with two friends searching for plants and herbs when he reportedly split from the group when they heard the noise of an animal they assumed to be a tiger. According to the other men, he never rejoined the group. A group of park officials and a rescue team were sent to look for him. They soon came across the wild tiger guarding the man’s body, and a dead monitor lizard.

The man’s right leg was bitten off and missing, presumably eaten, and there was a huge wound on his head. Officials spent about 15 hours bringing the body out of the forest. The remnants of the corpse were taken to Wang Nam Khiew Hospital for an autopsy.

Thap Lan National Park’s chief Prawatsart Chanthep says wild tigers have recently reappeared in the park after a 20 year absence.

Thap Lan National Park is in the Sankamphaeng Range and spans both Prachinburi and Nakhon Ratchasima provinces, north east of Bangkok. Established as a national park on 23 December 1981, it’s one of Thailand’s 40 national parks.

From Live Science…

Also known as Corbett’s tiger, after British hunter and naturalist Jim Corbett, the Indo Chinese tiger subspecies is found in Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and Vietnam and formerly in China. They are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List.

Indo-Chinese tigers are a bit smaller and darker than Bengal tigers, with shorter, narrower stripes. Males average 9 feet (3 m) from head to tail and weigh about 400 pounds (180 kilograms). Females are smaller, measuring about 8 feet (2.4 m) in length and weighing approximately 250 pounds (115 kilograms), according to the Save the Tigers Fund.

These tigers live in remote forests in hilly and mountainous terrain, which makes it difficult for scientists to gain access to their habitat. As a result, relatively little is known about the status of these tigers in the wild. A 1998 assessment put the number of Indo-Chinese tigers in the wild at an estimated 736 to 1,225 individuals… plus one in the Thap Lan National Park.

Genetic analyses in 2004 showed that Indo-Chinese tigers were a separate subspecies from Malayan tigers.

SOURCE: Chiang Rai Times