Reports show Bangladesh’s Bengal tiger population has grown steadily in the past nine years, owing to the government’s conservation initiatives. The latest published census report about the status of tigers in the Bangladesh Sundarbans, which is considered to be only remaining habitat for tigers in the country, shows that Bangladesh is home to at least 125 adult tigers. According to the IUCN Red List, the Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) is an endangered species globally. Data from the Global Tiger Forum shows that, as of 2023, there were 5,574 wild tigers living in 13 tiger range countries. The survey in Bangladesh, conducted through camera trap evaluation in two different timeframes — Jan. 2 to Apr. 25, 2023, and Nov. 1 to Mar. 28, 2024 — indicates that the big cat population increased by 17.92% from the 2015 survey and 9.65% from the 2018 one. Abu Naser Mohsin Hossain, project director of the Sundarbans Tiger Conservation Project, said about the survey and the methods used, “We looked at 2,240 square kilometers (865 square miles), that is about 50%, of the total [Sundarbans] forest land for the survey and used 1,210 cameras in 605 spots to capture the images.” The Sundarbans mangrove forest covers an area of 10,277 km2 (3,968 mi2), of which 6,017 km2 (2,323 mi2) is in Bangladesh, and the rest in neighboring India. Additionally, the survey monitored the big cat’s pugmarks along 1,306 km (811 mi) of narrow rivers and canals inside the forest. “Based on the images and pugmark analysis, we identified 84 adult tigers,”…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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