The government is violating its own policy to determine the number of Bengal Tigers in the Sundarbans using goats as baits, making the critically endangered species even more vulnerable to extinction.
The Bangladesh Wildlife Protection and Safety Act 2012 prohibits use of any kind of bait, especially domestic animals, in a natural forest because these baits carry various pathogens – viruses, bacteria, fungi, etc – that can harm the wildlife population.
But Md Kamal Hossain, ranger of Sarankhola forest in Sundarbans East, confirmed to the Dhaka Tribune that they had used more than a hundred domestic goats as baits during the ongoing Bengal Tiger Census.
“We tied the goats to lure tigers to come to certain points in the forest where cameras have been set up to capture marks [snaps] of the tigers,” Kamal said when the Dhaka Tribune contacted him on Wednesday morning.
Scientists would later process camera data to determine the number of Bengal Tigers in the Sundarbans, he added.
Zahidul Kabir, the divisional wildlife officer of the Sundarbans Wildlife Division who is coordinating the survey, refrained from making any comment on the use of bait.
He only said they had been following the camera trapping method designed by Yadvendradev Jhala of the Wildlife Institute of India and it was the only method being used in the survey.
Jhala has been working as the chief scientific adviser in the survey project.
In the camera trapping method, surveyors keep cameras mounted at different points of a forest for two months to automatically capture photographs of passing tigers. The number of tigers is determined later through an analysis of the photos.
However, when contacted, Forest Department’s Chief Conservator Yunus Ali denied the allegation of using baits in the Bengal Tiger Census project.
The Dhaka Tribune contacted Yadvendradev Jhala via email and he initially agreed to explain the methodology but did not reply back later.
The government took up the project named Ecology and Population Estimation of Tigers in the Sundarbans in 2013 under the World Bank-funded project Strengthening Regional Cooperation for Wildlife Protection. A similar project is also being carried out in the West Bengal part of the Sundarbans.
Zoology Professor Mostafa Firoz of Jahangirnagar University said the government could not take such harmful initiative that could threaten the entire wildlife of the Sundarbans.
Domestic animals carry various types of pathogens such as tape worm that could damage the liver of the forest animals, he said, adding that scientists working on wildlife never recommended using live baits for any activity in the forest.
In March last year, the Wildlife Scientific Committee formed under the Wildlife Protection and Safety Act barred US filmmaker George Butler from using baits for filming a documentary on Bengal Tiger for concerns for the Sundarbans wildlife as well as for legal obligations. Mostofa Firoz was a member of that committee.
Use of baits in hunting is also prohibited in every country because of the same reason.
Mostofa said in some areas of the USA people use “lures” consisting of clinically processed and pathogen-free parts of animals for hunting.
Only 130 Bengal Tigers!
Meanwhile, a number of officials at the Forest Department said as per a rough analysis of available data from the ongoing survey the current number of Bengal Tiger in the Sundarbans stands around 130.
However, no official figure on the ongoing census has been available yet.
A survey conducted in 2004 using the pug-mark method counted 440 Bengal Tigers in Bangladesh part of the Sundarbans and 60-80 in the Indian part.
The government has selected three tiger-dense areas – Kotka-Kochikhali, Neelkomol and Koikhali – for collecting sample data, which would be multiplied for the rest of the forest.
The survey at Kotka-Kochikhali (360 sq-km) and Koikhali (365 sq-km) was completed last winter (October-November last year); the survey at 624 sq-km area of Neelkomol will start next month with winter approaching.
The number of tigers found in these areas will be multiplied to the rest of the Sundarbans.
Dr Ishtiaq Uddin Ahmed, former chief conservator of forest, blamed poaching activities as the main reason for the fall in tiger population at such an alarming rate.
“We will be held responsible for the extinction of the Bengal Tiger from the wild,” said Ishtiaq, who currently works as the country representative of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
According to government statistics, the Sundarbans consists of 6,017 sq-km, which is 4.07% of the total land mass of the country and 40% of Bangladesh’s forest land.
The Sundarbans harbours 334 species of trees, shrubs and epyphites and 269 species of wild animals, including the world renowned Bengal Tiger.
A total of 1,397 sq-km area of the Sundarbans divided in three sanctuaries has been declared as World Heritage Site.
