Singapore and tigers

I was reminded this morning that Singapore's name allegedly comes from an apparent misidentification of a tiger as lion.   (See Wikipedia for a full explanation.)

Now, while lions were never native to Singapore or neighbouring regions, tigers certainly were.   Which led me to think "when was the last wild tiger seen in Singapore?"   I knew of the story of a tiger being shot in Raffles Hotel, but now that I check it, it wasn't a wild one, and it was in 1902.

This website tells the real story of how big a problem wild tigers were in the 19th century:

The earliest newspaper report about the existence of tigers was published on 8 September 1831 in the Singapore Chronicle. It was reported that a male Chinese national had been killed by a tiger, and that the same tiger probably had also killed a local shortly after.⁵ In 1835, colonial architect G. D. Coleman and some convict labourers were attacked while they were laying a new road through a swamp in the jungle near town, but no one was killed.⁶ In May 1839, The Singapore Free Press reported that two Chinese had been carried off by tigers near a newly built road called Rangong Road (today’s Serangoon Road).⁷ 

When the cultivation of gambier and pepper took off in Singapore in the 1840s, plantations extended beyond town and encroached on jungle areas. By the late 1840s, the number of plantations had peaked at 600.⁸ Chinese plantation coolies became easy targets for tigers. Reports of encounters with tigers increased in the 1830s and 1840s.⁹

Tiger attacks grew so intense that, by the middle of the 19th century, tigers were rumoured to claim one life every day.¹⁰ Governor of the Straits Settlements William Butterworth, upon being questioned in the House of Commons about the tiger problem, stated that the figure was probably 200 deaths a year due to tiger killings – which was nonetheless alarming in a population of 50,000 people.¹¹ In 1859, one village near Bukit Timah was abandoned due to overwhelming tiger attacks.¹²

It was believed that tigers in Singapore killed 300 humans in 1857, but only seven deaths were reported to the police. The actual figure could be higher as many tiger attacks were unreported. Plantation bosses often did not report the deaths as they did not want to scare away potential workers.¹³ During the 1860s, more than 350 lives were lost because of tigers.¹⁴  

They would swim across from peninsula, apparently.  I wonder how big a problem they were over there (the Malay peninsula).   Presumably, pretty big!

Anyway, the government set a bounty on hunting tigers, and their numbers diminished.

The last one was apparently in 1930.  Here's how the Straits Times reported it: 

 

Well, they got a beer named after them.  So not completely forgotten...