The number of recent recoveries of tiger skin and bones in and around the Sundarbans apparently dooms the government initiatives to save the Bengal Tigers and their habitat.
Experts say though the government has created much hype about conservation of the mangrove forest and the Bengal Tigers, international demands for tiger trophies and its body parts for medicinal purpose remain the same for a long time.
Recent recoveries give a message that the government should increase monitoring on the forest to stop poaching. Besides, ports and the cities should come under vigilance to stop trade and trafficking, said Dr Monirul H Khan of Jahangirnagar University.
Police on Monday recovered four deer heads and 60 kilograms of venison preserved in ice and arrested three poachers in Rampal upazila in Bagerhat.
The poachers confessed to trading tiger skin alongside poaching deer.
In another instance on February 17, forest officials arrested poacher Jamal Fakir along with four tiger skulls, 138 bones and hides of two adult tigers and one adult tigress in Sharankhola upazila in Bagerhat.
Earlier in 2009, Rapid Action Battalion-1 recovered skin of an adult tiger and arrested three people on Moilapota Road in Khulna.
Nearly every part of a tiger including, flesh, fat, claws, eyeballs, tail, bile, teeth, whisker, penis and brain has a prescribed benefit according to the tenets of Chinese medicine.
Of all tiger parts, bones are the most valuable. Tiger bone is ground into powder before being made into pills, plasters and decoctions containing herbs. Tiger skin is also valuable in the international market for its ornamental value.
Tiger is treated as one of the most critically endangered animals fast disappearing from the world, with only 3,200 big cats [Penthera Tigris] surviving in the wild.
Back in 1900, there were around 100,000 tigers around the globe, says International Tiger Report. Experts predict the species will be extinct in the next century if strong measures are not taken.
The Bangladesh part of the Sundarbans, a stretch of 6,017 square kilometres of forest, is officially home to 450 tigers and is considered as the highest number of big cat habitation in a single forest.
The latest survey finds the number of big cats is ranging between 400 and 450.
The last pugmark survey by the forest department and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 2004 estimated the number to be around 440 including 21 cubs.
Earlier surveys conducted by Guy Mountfort in 1969 estimated 50 to 100 tigers, Hendrichs 350 in 1975, Salter jointly with the Department of Forest 450 to 600 in 1984, while Gittins and Akonda found 430-450 tigers in 1982. Another survey referred as Jalil estimated 362 tigers in a report released in 1998 while the study was conducted in 1993.
The tiger had a wide distribution in overall Bangladesh.
According to a report of International Union for Conservation (IUCN) published on Bengal Tigers of the Sundarbans, the last tiger shot outside the Sundarbans was in Sal forest in 1956, in the Bhawals in 1970s, in the mixed evergreen forest of Kassalong in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in 1976 and in the mixed evergreen forest of Pathalia hills of Sylhet in 1985.
With the help of the Global Tiger Initiatives, Bangladesh, one of the Tiger Ranged Countries (TRC), has already developed a National Tiger Recovery Programme and Tiger Action Plan and also amended the Wildlife Conservation Act that ensures compensation for victim of a Tiger attacks in the Sundarbans.
Since 2000, tigers killed 193 people, while 30 tigers were beaten to death and some others were found dead in the forest, according to official records of the forest department.
Source : The Daily Star
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