There is no dearth of hunting, says the official. This may be due to territorial fights, he says
The residents of Mitrabari of Satjleiya area of Gosaba block of Sundarbans woke up on the first day of the new year on the first day of the new year from the footprints of a tiger in the forest near Basti. As the guards reached the spot and started installing nylon nets and net cages, the tiger attacked one of them, who had to be taken to the government hospital.
This is the fourth incident of a tiger wandering into the Sundarbans in the last few months. On two occasions, the tigers had stayed in nearby settlements from the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve (STR) and on another two occasions from the South 24 Parganas Forest Division.
Forest officials were able to trap the tiger more than five days after it crossed a 3.5-km stretch of the river at Gopalganj village in Kultali area on December 28. It took more than five days and a lot of patience on the part of the authorities to pacify it and put it in the cage.
Trap cages, tranquilizer teams, nylon nets, drones, water cannons and chili bombs were used to rescue the tiger from the forest near human habitation in South 24 Parganas. On December 8, a tiger had strayed into the Bhuvaneshwari forest and was trapped after a 12-hour operation.
STR director Tapas Das said, “It is not one tiger but different tigers.” Hindu, He denied the lack of hunting in the forest is causing the incidents.
If there is a shortage, the number of incidents will be more, he said. He said that there could be many reasons for this.
“In the Sundarbans it is difficult to differentiate between areas where there are tigers in the forest and those that are close to habitat. That’s why the tiger often wanders into these forests,” he said. He also said that there could be territorial fighting between tigers which could result in incidents. “A male can drive other males out of the zone.”
Forest Minister Jyotipriya Malik said that Sundarbans is facing a lot of problem due to good forest management.
The previous tiger census in 2021 had put the number at 96 and 74 of them were captured through camera traps and identified as unique individuals.
There have also been incidents of attacks on fishermen venturing into the forest for livelihood. A tiger attacked two fishermen on Friday near Rangmari Char near Haldibari forest in Sundarbans. When they were catching the crab it jumped on their boat. While the other fishermen beat it with sticks, the big cat was able to injure two of them.
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