Bangladesh’s State Minister for Fisheries and Livestock Sultan Salauddin Tuku on Monday delivered a stark reality check. Bangladesh is home to just 189 tigers – 124 roaming the Sundarbans mangrove forest and the rest confined to zoos. That figure, he said, is simply not enough to safeguard the species from the spectre of extinction.
The numbers land with particular force because the Royal Bengal tiger is more than an animal here. It is a national symbol, woven into the country’s identity, folklore and ecological conscience. Yet the latest tally reveals how fragile that symbol has become.
A Sobering Headcount
Breaking down the 189, the minister painted a clear picture: the Sundarbans – the world’s largest continuous mangrove forest and Bangladesh’s only wild tiger habitat – holds 124 animals. The Bangladesh National Zoo in Mirpur accounts for about 15, while zoos elsewhere in the country house roughly 50 more.
These figures align closely with the most recent camera-trap census completed in 2024, which estimated 125 tigers in the Bangladesh portion of the Sundarbans. That survey showed a modest but meaningful rise from 106 in 2015 and 114 in 2018. Conservationists view the upward trend as hard-won progress after years of decline. Yet even this improvement leaves the population critically small for a landscape that once supported far greater numbers.
A century ago, an estimated 100,000 tigers roamed Asia. Today the global population hovers around 5,800. Three subspecies have already vanished. Bangladesh’s share of the remaining Bengal tigers is confined almost entirely to one ecosystem, making the country’s population uniquely vulnerable.
The Sundarbans Under Siege
The Sundarbans stretches across roughly 6,017 square kilometres of Bangladesh territory – about 60 per cent of the total mangrove system shared with India. It is a labyrinth of tidal channels, mudflats and dense mangrove stands that somehow sustains tigers in one of the most challenging habitats on earth. Tigers here have adapted to swimming long distances between islands and hunting in dense, saline vegetation. Their prey base – primarily spotted deer and wild boar – is thinner than in many mainland forests, and their home ranges are among the smallest recorded for the species.
Climate change is tightening the noose. Rising sea levels, increasing salinity, more frequent and intense cyclones, and reduced freshwater flow from upstream rivers are altering the forest’s structure. Scientists project significant loss of suitable tiger habitat in the coming decades; some models warn of severe contraction by mid-century. Cyclones have already claimed tigers in the past, and storm surges push saltwater deeper into the interior, stressing both vegetation and prey.
Human pressure compounds the ecological stress. Thousands of people enter the forest each year to collect fish, crabs, honey and firewood. Deer poaching remains a persistent problem because it simultaneously removes tiger prey and sets traps that occasionally snare the big cats themselves. Between 2001 and 2025, forest records show 61 tiger deaths – 26 killed by criminals, 14 by villagers after the animals strayed into settlements, 19 from natural causes, and a handful from other factors including cyclones.
Human-tiger conflict is an old and bitter reality along the forest fringe. Village Tiger Response Teams, trained volunteers who help guide straying animals back into the forest and reduce retaliatory killings, have become an essential part of the conservation toolkit. Yet every conflict incident risks eroding local tolerance for a species that many communities still fear.
Conservation Gains and Persistent Gaps
Despite the challenges, the slow recovery of the Sundarbans population reflects determined work by the forest department and its partners. Camera-trap surveys have replaced earlier, less reliable methods based on pugmarks. Smart patrol systems, drone surveillance and intensified anti-poaching drives have removed hundreds of snares and led to dozens of arrests. In one recent success story, a tigress trapped in a poacher’s snare in January 2026 was rescued, treated for six months and released back into the eastern Sundarbans.
Authorities have also provided food support to thousands of fishing families during seasonal bans, aiming to ease pressure on the forest. The government has set an ambitious target of 160 to 200 wild tigers by 2035. Longer-term, officials are examining the possibility of establishing a second population through translocation to the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a landscape that once held tigers but currently has no confirmed breeding population. Such a move would reduce the risk of putting all of Bangladesh’s wild tigers in a single, climate-vulnerable basket.
Still, experts caution that numbers alone do not equal security. Density remains low in parts of the forest, particularly the Satkhira range. Prey populations need strengthening. Research capacity has suffered setbacks. And the single-landscape dependency means that a major cyclone, disease outbreak or surge in organised poaching could reverse a decade of gains almost overnight.
Beyond the Numbers: A National Responsibility
Minister Tuku framed the issue in moral as well as scientific terms. Tigers, he said, are a national asset. Protecting them requires more than government programmes; it demands a conservation ethic among ordinary citizens, especially the young. “If we do not take effective initiatives now and fail to raise public awareness, this species will face an even deeper crisis in the future,” he warned.
The census itself, he noted, falls under the forest department, which conducts the exercise through established scientific protocols. Transparency and continuity of funding remain essential if the three-yearly monitoring cycle is to continue delivering reliable data.
The global context offers both caution and cautious hope, the minister said. Worldwide, stronger protection has helped push tiger numbers up from a low of roughly 3,200 in 2010 to around 5,800 today. Countries such as India, Nepal and Bhutan have demonstrated that determined policy, community engagement and habitat protection can produce recoveries.
What Hangs in the Balance
The fate of Bangladesh’s 124 wild tigers is inseparable from the fate of the Sundarbans itself. A healthy mangrove forest buffers coastal communities from storms, supports fisheries that feed millions, and sequesters carbon. Tigers sit at the apex of that system; their presence is both a product of and a requirement for ecological integrity.
Losing them would not merely erase a national emblem. It would signal the unravelling of one of the planet’s most remarkable remaining wildernesses. The minister’s warning is therefore not only about counting animals. It is about whether Bangladesh – and the wider world – is prepared to act with the urgency the numbers demand.
(Courtesy: owsa.in)
