Now metal traps and snares, and not fire arms are latest threats to tigers and wildlife from poachers. The two-day meet of wildlife officials that concluded on Thursday has sounded red alert in all tiger reserves of the country stressing on armed patrolling as the need of the hour.

On the lines of e-monitoring in Corbett, certain tiger reserves as the Sunderbans in West-Bengal have called for installation of similar systems. The meeting also took a review of the status of Phase-4 monitoring that began in November last year.

To support the national cause of tiger conservation, Animal Planet will showcase a month-long series on the big cat. It's one of the last places on Earth where this magnificent creature walks free and feared. The Sunderbans in West Bengal is home to the wildest of cats, the tiger. But there’s a rumble in the jungle as the tigers of Bangladesh are turning to humans — killing up to 100 people a year. While tigers rarely kill people, it’s a mystery why they are attacking humans in these wet mangrove forests.

KOLKATA: The first ever crocodile census was kicked off in the Sunderbans on Sunday. The exercise to be conducted in the daylight, will help track the behavioural pattern of the apex predators of the aquatic system. A fund of Rs 10 lakh has been sanctioned. It may be noted that there were reports of human-estuarine crocodile conflicts in Sunderbans in recent times especially from Sajnekhali and Kultoli areas. Some predators were also spotted in the rivers inside the villages.

For inhabitants of the Sundarban islands, the fear of crocodiles lurking in the estuaries is second only to that of tigers. But while there are some estimates about the number of the big cats in the Mangrove forests, no one knows how many crocodiles prowl the waters.

To rectify this gap in information, the Forest Department will launch the first-ever exercise to estimate the number of crocodiles next week. Experts are relying on the fact that crocodiles, being cold-blooded animals, emerge from the waters and bask in the winter sun at this time of the year.

SONARPUR, 20 JUNE: The tourism industry in the Sunderbans is likely to get a boost after works for a tiger rescue centre at Jharkhali in Basanti is completed. The spot would be more attractive to the animal lovers as a crocodile breeding centre was also constructed near the tiger rehabilitation centre.

The rescue centre would be built on the bank of Harobhaga river in the Jharkhali area.

The cats in your para may be multiplying but at least one of the four cat species found in and around Calcutta is vanishing along with the wetlands the animals thrive on.

Wildlife specialists have no clue about the population of the fast-disappearing fishing cats, which have been spotted in the marshy areas on the city outskirts, and in Howrah and Hooghly as well as the Sunderban swamps.

The

Ananya Dutta
KOLKATA: Scientists and officials of the Sunderban Tiger Reserve are investigating whether the Sunderban tiger is a different sub-species compared to those found in the sub-continent, officials told The Hindu on Sunday.

The Sunderban tiger exhibits certain distinctive morphological adaptations that make it particularly suited to the mangrove habitat of the Sunderban islands.

Th

KOLKATA, 19 SEPT: Forest officials of the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve (STR) successfully tranquillized a full grown female Royal Bengal tiger from Kumirmari island of Gosaba in South 24-Parganas last night.

According to forest officials, the big cat, which is around 10 feet long, had strayed into a village last night.