Where are the Sunderban tigers?

Surojit Mahalanobis / TNN / Jul 22, 2005, 22:54 IST

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NEW DELHI: West Bengal forest department recently claimed to have 250 tigers at present and assured growth.

NEW DELHI: A tiger specialist group on Friday said, there may be about 150 to 175 tigers at Sunderbans at present. Those which migrate into Bangladesh side, are poached there by villagers. Sunderbans has a bigger expanse in Bangaldesh.
West Bengal forest department recently claimed to have 250 tigers at present and assured growth. The claim was supported by the ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) and Project Tiger officials, who even boasted of having "photographs of all 250 tigers".
Specialists said, "The situation doesn't support the claim." A tiger requires 35 to 40 kg meat per week or seven to eight kg per day. Its general food, a full-grown spotted deer weighs about 15 kg. About 30 percent of its flesh a tiger can't consume. That means a tiger can live hardly two days on a full-grown spotted deer or 15 of them a month or 250 deers a year.
Going by the state's claim, 250 tigers need about 62,500 deers a year in the park. All deers are not of equal weight.

Deer breeding ratio is determined by a one-male-and-four-females unit, that is four deer-calves a year from a male deer. Experts say, "Even if we trust the state's claim of releasing 40,000 deers every year, tigers will have to wait about six months to get the next feed. The fact is the state doesn't release even that number of deers."
As of photographs, the group calls...
...them "misleading". Tigers are individuals in nature but look alike. You have to go by biota and pugmark both or by collaring them, which have not been done in most cases of tiger census."

Sunderbans tigers are known to live on fishes and other animals. Man-tiger conflicts are also rampant, though humans are not in its food-chain, until a tiger turns a man-eater.
Expert said, "A tiger requires 9 sq km area for living. As human intervention is growing in the protected 2,585 sq km area of the Tiger Reserve, space is not enough to sustain 250 plus tigers. Figures are fudged."
The group's intelligence report has been supported by a world-class NGO working in the state. "Don't mention us in report, or the state government won't allow us to work there. Tigers are being poached in full knowledge of rangers, guards and villagers.
Poacher Naimuddin is active and is helped by forest officials. Everybody has some kind of interests in tiger poaching. Villagers, who don't have a standard source of income, are the basic killers, for money. They trap tigers and kill by poisoning or shooting at close range, for only Rs 100 per tiger."

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