When killer beast struck in Lozère

DID you know – the first sighting of the mysterious killer Beast of Gévaudan was made in 1764 and attacks by such wolf-like animals were reported in France right up to 1954.

The beast struck around the area of Gévaudan (Lozère and Haute-Loire) over three years, killing and partially eating more than 100 people.

On hearing of the attacks, Louis XV ordered hunters to the area, who eventually killed a large grey wolf.

The wolf was stuffed and sent to Versailles, but the killings continued.

A second animal was killed in 1765, but accounts are confusing.

Some claim a local hunter, Jean Chastel, shot it with a silver bullet and found human remains inside it; others place Chastel in cahoots with the beast; others that he had bred it via one of his dogs, a red-coloured mastiff that matched the description of the red-haired beast with a bushy tail.

A study by the History Channel in 2009 dismissed theories that it was a wolf, and suggested an Asian hyena, because wolves do not have the jaw power to bite through human bones.