Blonde Girl Wearing Leopard Swimsuit In The Construction Area

While most leopards avoid people, humans may occasionally be targeted as prey. Most healthy leopards prefer wild prey to humans, but injured, sickly or struggling cats with a shortage of regular prey may resort to hunting humans and become habituated to it. Two extreme cases occurred in India: the first leopard, "the Leopard of Rudraprayag", may have killed over 125 people; the second, the "Panar Leopard", was believed to have killed more than 400, after injury by a poacher made it unable to hunt normal prey. Both were killed by the hunter Jim Corbett. Man-eating leopards are considered bold by feline standards and may enter human settlements for prey, more so than lions and tigers. Author and big game hunter Kenneth Anderson, who had first-hand experience with many man-eating leopards, described them as far more threatening than tigers:
"Although examples of such animals are comparatively rare, when they do occur they depict the panther (leopard) as an engine of destruction quite equal to his far larger cousin, the tiger. Because of his smaller size he can conceal himself in places impossible to a tiger, his need for water is far less, and in veritable demoniac cunning and daring, coupled with the uncanny sense of self preservation and stealthy disappearance when danger threatens, he has no equal."
—Kenneth Anderson, Nine Man-Eaters and One Rogue, Chapter II The Spotted Devil of Gummalapur