Man-eating leopard on the loose: It's eaten 15 so far

A leopard looks out from a tree at the Mashatu game reserve on July 25, 2010 in Mapungubwe, Botswana. (Getty Images)

Man-eating big cats are rare, but a leopard in western Nepal has just claimed it's 15th victim; a four-year-old boy.

Maheshwor Dhakal says that the taste of human blood can be almost addictive for leopards "Since human blood has more salt than animal blood, once wild animals get the taste of salty blood they do not like other animals like deer."

All the recorded victims so far are women and children from the villages bordering the dense forests where the leopard lives, although Dhakal speculates the same leopard could also be responsible for more deaths over the border in the Indian state of Uttakhand.