Sunderban Tigers
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[rule]
Man-eating tigers rule in vast Indian mangrove
swamp
[Pathfinder]
Killer cats have hunted people for [tiger]
centuries
August 10, 1996
Web posted at: 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT)
SUNDARBANS TIGER RESERVE, India (AP) -- The sun
was just beginning to set over Sundarbans, India's
vast mangrove swamp, when the four woodcutters
began winding up a day's work.
Everything had gone better than expected. Forest
guards hadn't spotted them working illegally on
two muddy islands. And they hadn't encountered any
of the crocodiles, poisonous snakes, sharks and
tigers that roam the tidal delta.
It was low tide, and the men began wading across
the channel between the two densely wooded
islands, collecting fish they had caught in nets
for dinner.
They joked with Bablu, their leader, as they put
the fish in the pot he was carrying.
Suddenly, a flame-colored Royal Bengal tiger
leaped out of the forest. Although some experts
believe tigers strike only from the rear of their
prey, it attacked Bablu from the front, grabbing
his shoulders with its paws and trying to bite his
neck.
Bablu and another man fainted, but the other two
drove off the tiger by hitting it with sticks.
Moments later, as the men desperately pulled Bablu
toward their boat by his feet, the tiger returned,
grabbed Bablu by the neck and dragged him away as
the others fled to their village outside the
Sundarbans reserve.
Elsewhere, tigers seldom kill people [India]
unless they are defending their food or
cubs, or recovering from wounds inflicted by a
hunter.
But in Sundarbans, tigers behave like no others in
the world. They have hunted people for centuries,
says Sy Montgomery, an American who has studied
the region for years and recently published a book
about it called "Spell of the Tiger."
Scientists don't know why, she says. "They are a
mystery."
"Nature does not obey the rules here," Montgomery
says in her book. "Fish climb trees; the animals
drink salt water; the roots of trees grow up
toward the sky instead of down to the earth. And
here, the tigers do not obey the same rules by
which tigers elsewhere govern their lives."
Each year, dozens of men are killed by the 250
tigers thought to live in Sundarbans, which
stretches between India and Bangladesh along the
Bay of Bengal.
It is one of the few places left on Earth where
the dwindling species isn't being eradicated by
poachers or by villages and industries encroaching
on tiger habitats.
With 3,000 to 4,000 tigers in all, India is home
to about 60 percent of the world's remaining
stock, but hundreds of tigers are killed by
poachers each year, said Peter Jackson, chairman
of the Cat Specialist Group of the World
Conservation Union in Switzerland.
Their skins and bones are smuggled to China, South
Korea and Taiwan for use in folk medicines. And
Jackson predicts tigers will all but disappear in
the wild by century's end unless countries like
India do more to save them.
But the Sundarbans tigers probably will escape
that fate. While some poaching goes on in the
swamp, its forests are too thick and its tigers
too dangerous for many hunters.
"Even if the tiger disappears from everywhere
else, it will survive in Sundarbans because it's
very inhospitable terrain to poachers. It's also
the area where they are most likely to be killed
by tigers," said Arin Ghosh, director of the
network of tiger reserves that India established
in 1973.
Man is not at the top of the food chain in
Sundarbans.
The swamp's tigers, which weigh up to 500 pounds,
are completely at home in the channels that
separate the many islands. They have been known to
rocket out of the water onto the deck of an open
boat and pull a sleeping crewman off by the back
of his head.
K.C. Gayen, director of the Sundarbans reserve,
believes the cats often consider man an easier
catch than their main prey: wild pigs, spotted
deer and fish.
"The deer are faster. The boar has a tusk to
defend itself. Even the fish negotiate the swamps
and waterways better," Gayen said.
And tigers aren't the only predators.
Visiting on one of the 60-foot motor boats the
government permits to operate in the preserve,
crocodiles can be seen lurking in the shadows of
the mangrove trees that are partially submerged
during high tides.
Six species of shark roam the waterways, including
18-foot tiger shark and dog sharks that sometimes
cordon off schools of small fish and take turns
swimming through them to feast.
Few visitors dare land their boats on the muddy
banks of the islands and walk through the wooded
swamps. In addition to monkeys, monitor lizards
and the little mudskipper fish that can climb
trees, the branches often hold cobras and vipers.
Huge swarms of bees sometimes kill people. At one
point during a reporter's visit, a swarm 20 feet
long and 10 feet wide flew over the boat.
Only Forest Department officials are authorized to
travel inside the Sundarbans Tiger Reserve's
515-square-mile core area, which is set aside for
wildlife alone.
Around the core is a buffer zone of 560 square
miles. Outside that, many impoverished lower-caste
and indigenous tribal people live in remote
villages.
The villagers are allowed to fish, collect honey
and cut wood in Sundarbans if they first get
permits. But many venture into tiger territory
illegally each day, risking becoming the cats'
prey.
Copyright 1996 Associated Press. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
[rule]
Related stories:
* Save the tiger? Experts say it may be too
late - May 16, 1996
* Wildlife experts search for solution to tiger
decline - February 3, 1996
* Poaching threatens Indian tigers - September
16, 1995
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