Joynal Abedin Khan :
Although the government has taken various measures to protect the Royal Bengal Tiger in the Sundarbans, its poaching is on the rise with 51 being killed in the last 15 years (2001-2015), according to Forest Department data.
Among the tigers, 18 were directly killed in the Sundarbans’ East Zone, 16 in the West Zone and the rest on other areas.
According to its data, the Forest Department recovered 20 tiger skins from different parts of the country during the period (2001-2015) while being smuggled out of the country.
Meanwhile, at least six suspected tiger poachers were killed in a ‘gunfight’ with police at Mandarbari of the Sundarbans (West) under Koira upazila on Sunday afternoon.
They are Sheikh Bakhtiar Uddin, 42, from Satkhira, and Gazi Selim, 35, Rabiul Islam, 35, Gazi Mostafizur Rahman, 36, Faruk Sana, 48, and Gazi Md Amirul Islam, 25, all from Khulna.
Harendra Nath Sarkaer, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Koira Police Station said that a team of police in separate drives arrested the tiger poachers from different areas of the district early in the morning.
Later, the police team took them to Mandarbari area in the Sundarbans around 4:00pm in a bid to recover tiger hide and firearms. Sensing the policemen’s presence, the associates of the poachers opened fire on them, forcing them the fire back that triggered a gunfight.
The six ‘tiger poachers’ were caught in the line of fire and died on the spot while other cohorts managed to flee, the police official said.
Police recovered four guns, three pistols and three pieces of tiger hide from the spot, he said.
Bangladesh has only 106 tigers in the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, a sharp decline from 440 in 2004 due to unchecked poaching of the endangered animals, said a top forest official, following an India-Bangladesh survey.
The people who live surrounding the Sundarbans from generation to generation claim that the number of poached tigers would be much higher than 51 as mentioned by the Forest Department data.
They said wildlife poaching continues rampantly in the Sundarbans while the poachers frequently enter it and hunt tigers, deer and other wildlife using traps or shooting them.
There are a number of wildlife poachers’ groups in the nearby villages of the Sundarbans and they are poaching wildlife in both the Sundarbans East and Sundarbans West zones. These groups have a link with the international wildlife smugglers, according to local sources.
Earlier on August 8, police in a drive arrested two poachers along with 69 tiger bones from a launch terminal in the city’s Notun Bazaar area, said Debasis Roy, Sub-Inspector of Sadar Police Station. The law enforcers also seized 69 tiger bones from their possession, he said.
On January 20, Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested three members of a tiger poachers’ gang along with a tiger hide, teeth and some bones of tiger from a bus stand in Morelganj upazila in Bagerhat district. They confessed to killing eight Royal Bengal Tigers in Sundarbans in the last two months for smuggling out their hides and bones.
In the meantime, RAB personnel in a drive arrested three members of the tiger poachers’ gang, including an ex-BGB member, with the skin of an adult tiger in the capital on January 20.
Earlier, RAB rescued three Bengal tiger cubs from a wildlife smuggler’s house at Shyamoli in the capital and arrested two persons in this connection.
The residents of Banglabazar, Uttar Rajapur, Sonatola, Bagi and Khuriakhali villages nearby the Sundarbans said there are a number of active wildlife poachers’ groups in their neighbourhood and they are directly involved in wildlife poaching.
Dr Tapan Kumar Dey, the government’s wildlife conservator, said analysis of camera footage from the year-long survey that ended in April found that the number tigers ranged between 83 and 130, giving an average of 106.
More scientific method was used in the new Tiger census this year, which found only 106 big cats in the Sundarbans, and attributed its sharp fall in recent years to unchecked wildlife poaching, said Dr Tapan said. Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of Sundarbans East Zone Amir Hossain Chowdhury said many plans are being implemented to protect the Bengal tigers while the Forest Department’s Wildlife Circle has been strengthened, officials of the department have been trained and coordination among the Forest Department, Coast Guard, RAB and police has been strengthened to check wildlife poaching and smuggle out of the country.
Monirul Khan, a zoology professor at Jahangirnagar University and the nation’s foremost tiger expert, said the 2004 census that used pug marks to count tigers was not actually reliable and scientific method. “So, it didn’t give the exact figure of Sundarbans’ tigers.
The International Tiger Forum in 2010 declared its collective will to take all necessary actions to prevent the extinction of wild tigers and increasing global tiger population double by 2022.
The forum has taken the Global Tiger Recovery Programme Implementation Plan, which is a significant step for the Tiger conservation of the Tiger Range Countries, including Bangladesh.
