Only 100 tigers remain in the largest mangrove forest in the world. Located in Bangladesh, there are fewer tigers left that previously thought, officials announced. The last census conducted was in 2004 where an estimated 440 tigers were known to be living in the forest. According to experts, a huge difference was tallied because this time, cameras were used to determine the exact number instead of just relying on pug marks. Bangladesh's wildlife conservator, Tapan Kumar Dey, conducted the survey for a year that ended in April this year. It revealed that the range of tigers living in the forest goes from 83 to 130 which gives them an average of 106 tigers left, Dey said to Agency France Presse.
India's side of the Sundarbans Forest is 40 percent of the total area of the 10,000 square kilometer forest that spans across both India and Bangladesh. On India's side, only 74 tigers were counted in the recent survey. Most of these tigers live in other parts of India and there are others located in Bangladesh, Nepal, China, Bhutan and Myanmar - totaling 1,411 tigers in 2008 that grew to 2,226 in 2015, according to The Guardian.
Bangladesh's expert on tigers from Jahagirnagar University, Monirul Khan, emphasized that certain actions had to be done in order to keep the tigers alive. Khan said that their government should implement better laws against poaching to preserve the lives of these tigers and to stop destroying the habitats of these tigers, Time reported.
The World Wildlife Foundation hopes that the population of tigers doubles by 2022. From 100,000 in 1900, they have become nearly extinct with only 3,200 tigers in existence today. This is the smallest population ever recorded caused by poaching, human revenge killings and loss of habitat. They have to adjust and survive despite the growth of the human population, the WWF wanted to emphasize.
