Conservation-ists are fighting an uphill battle to save the Royal Bengal Tiger from extinction in the face of systematic destruction of the Sundarban, the world’s greatest mangrove forest. There were about 440 tigers in the Sundarban — 121 of them males, 298 females and 21 cubs — according to the tiger census conducted in 2004. Wildlife experts, however, said the actual count of the tiger population was much lower.
Dr M Monirul H Khan, an associate professor of the zoology department of Jahangirnagar University, who obtained his PhD on the Royal Bengal Tiger from Cambridge University, carried out a census in 2006 in the Sundarban to determine the exact number of big cats. He found only 200 tigers there at that time.
In India, the scenario is somewhat different. In June this year, the West Bengal forest department announced that the number of tigers in the Indian part of the Sundarban had increased by 50 per cent, from 77 in 2011 to 103 in 2013.
Prof Anwarul Islam, a professor in the zoology department of Dhaka University, said there were 13 different species of tigers in 17 districts before independence in the then East Pakistan, but now they exist
only in the Sundarban.
He also said that currently there are around 4,000 tigers in 13 countries of the world. The Royal Bengal Tiger is found in Bangladesh and India.
When asked, forest and environment minister Dr Hasan Mahmud told The Independent that the number of tigers has been decreasing all over the world. “In 1900, there were 100,000 tigers all over the globe. It has now come down to a mere 3,700. If this trend continues, tigers will be extinct within a few decades,” he pointed out.
The forest area of the Sundarban has shrunk considerably over the years, thus resulting in shortage of roaming space for tigers. Nearly half a million people earn their livelihood out of natural resources available in the forest.
The forest department estimates that 151 tigers have been killed since the independence of Bangladesh. Also, an ever-increasing army of poachers, in collusion with a section of unscrupulous forest officials, are involved in killing tigers. A large number of local people is reportedly engaged in smuggling tiger cubs. They are employed by different international rackets, who supply tiger cubs, various body parts of different species of animals, including tigers, crocodiles and deer, to the international market.
Prof. Monirul H Khan said that poachers kill five tigers on average every year.
In 2012, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) recovered three Royal Bengal Tiger cubs from the residence of a wildlife smuggler in the capital’s Shyamoli area. The two-month old cubs were captured in the Sundarban by animal traffickers, in connivance with a section of forest officials. The arrested persons were negotiating with an international party for selling each cub for Tk. 2 million.
As the growing population encroaches upon the natural habitat of tigers even further, humans and tigers are competing with each other for living space. Also, indiscriminate poaching is reducing the number of the animals’ natural prey. That is why they enter human habitats more often to find food.
According to official estimates, tigers visited human habitats 123 times between July 2008 and July 2010. Of them, five were beaten to death, while 51 people and 36 livestock were killed by the tigers. A total of 193 people were killed in tiger attacks from 2000 to 2009 and 23 tigers were also killed during the same period.
Forest officials said big ships and cargo vessels plying across the Sundarban were also disturbing the natural environment of tigers. Some of them claimed that the big cats are migrating to the Indian part of the Sundarban since food is scarce.
The forest minister, however, brushed aside any such idea. “It is not true that our tigers are migrating to the Indian part. Our tigers sometimes travel to the Indian part in search of mates.”
He emphasised the importance of short-term as well as long-term initiatives to save the Royal Bengal Tiger. The short-term initiatives include a strong legal bar on poaching of the natural prey of the tiger, as deer’s meat meets about 80 per cent of the tiger’s food requirements. The long-term initiatives, on the other hand, include adaptation to global warming and a rise in the sea level. According to an estimate, poachers kill more than 5,500 deer a year. He said the plants and trees of the Sundarban must be protected as these give sanctuary to the deer and the boars, which are food for the tigers.
Meanwhile, little progress has been made regarding the protocol on the conservation of Royal Bengal Tigers in the Sundarban, which was signed between Dhaka and New Delhi two years ago.
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh signed the protocol on September 6, 2011, during the Indian premier’s official visit to Bangladesh.
The environment ministry formed a committee, but not a single meeting of the committee has been held till now.
About the government initiatives to save tigers, the forest minister said the government had formed a special strike force in the Sundarban to protect wildlife. “We’ve introduced an integrated management programme to save the Sundarban. At least 80 villages adjacent to the forest have been included under the programme,” he added.
The new 300-member strike force would help curb the ever-growing menace of poaching, he said. The decision to form such a task force had been taken after law enforcement officials recently seized three tiger skins and a large quantity of bones.
-With The Independent input
