Mongla World Tiger Day meeting told 30 Sundarbans tigers died in 25 years

On Tuesday, 29 July 2025, World Tiger Day, Md Nur Alam Sheikh, a central committee member of the environmental group Dharitri Rokkhay Amra (Dhora), told a discussion at the Mongla Upazila Auditorium in Bagerhat that 30 tigers had died over the past 25 years. By his count only 10 of them died naturally, while 14 were beaten to death by local people. The morning meeting, titled "Save the Sundarbans, save the tiger", was organised by Dhora, Waterkeepers Bangladesh and Pashur River Waterkeeper.

Nur Alam Sheikh, coordinator of Pashur River Waterkeeper and of Sundarbans Rokkhay Amra, moderated the meeting. According to Jagonews24, he said that everyone must help resolve the conflict between tigers and people and become friends of the tiger.

Speakers said the Sundarbans, the tiger's habitat, had to be saved from the impact of climate change and from pollution. In their account, tigers were falling ill and dying after drinking poisoned water, so those who poison the forest's rivers and canals and those who traffic tigers had to be stopped. They called for coordinated initiatives and planning to protect the threatened animal.

Those present included agriculturist Mohammad Shamimur Rahman Shamim, research affairs secretary of the BNP central committee; upazila social services officer S M Masud Rana; upazila press club president Ahsan Habib Hasan; and freedom fighter Sheikh Abu Hanif. Speaking as a guest, Shamim described the tiger as a symbol of valour and courage, noted that the national cricket team's logo is the Bengal tiger, and said that if the Sundarbans survives, the tiger will survive. After the meeting he handed out prizes for a children's art competition on "Tigers of the Sundarbans".

The death count given at the meeting was the speaker's own. A Channel 24 report on the same day gave a different tally for 2001 to 2025: at least 91 Royal Bengal tigers died in the Sundarbans, of which 58 were beaten to death or hunted, 30 died naturally and 3 were lost to natural disasters.

The state news agency BSS reported that tiger counts in Bangladesh found 106 tigers in 2015, 114 in 2018 and 125 in the latest count, in 2024. Citing the Forest Department, Dhaka Post and Kalbela reported that the 2023 survey placed cameras in 639 grids across the Satkhira, Khulna and Bagerhat ranges, and that the two surveys five years apart showed an increase of about 10 percent. Speaking to Dhaka Post that day, Nur Alam Sheikh said the 2010 tiger summit in St Petersburg had called for tiger numbers to double within 12 years, so the rise was negligible by that measure. He also said an international smuggling syndicate was active in the Sundarbans and involved in trafficking tiger body parts and other animals.

Forest Department figures showed that tiger attacks in the Sundarbans killed 425 people and injured 95 between 2001 and 2025. Imran Ahmed, conservator of forests for the Sundarbans Khulna region, said village tiger response teams had been formed and that 60 km of a planned 74 km of fencing along the forest in Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira had been completed.

According to BSS, World Tiger Day began at the 2010 tiger summit in St Petersburg and is marked every year on 29 July. The 2025 theme was "harmonious coexistence of people and tigers", and Bangladesh's own slogan was "more tigers, a prosperous Sundarbans". BSS described the Sundarbans as the last refuge of Bangladesh's tigers, threatened by habitat shrinking under climate change, poachers and food shortages.

UNESCO describes the Sundarbans, on the delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna on the Bay of Bengal, as the largest contiguous mangrove forest in the world, covering about 10,000 sq km, 60 percent of it in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Sundarbans was inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 1997. Mongla, where the meeting took place, is an upazila of Bagerhat district, and its port near the Pashur river is the country's second-largest seaport.

Photo: Dr. Raju Kasambe / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS), Dhaka Post, Kalbela, Channel 24, UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Wikipedia