Sunderbans is the largest delta in the world formed by the three rivers namely the Ganges, Brahmaputra and the Meghan. It covers an area which is approximately 4264 square kilometers and it is the India’s largest tiger reserve along with that it is the largest national park in India. In addition it has been declared as the UNESCO World Heritage site.

 

The Sunderbans mangrove forest also spans tow countries i.e. India and Bangladesh and in fact it is situated in the Southern tip of the state of West Bengal in India.

 

Basically Sunderbans is a collection of small islands and its name translated means beautiful forests.

 

Sunderbans and wildlife as far as wildlife is concerned Sunderbans has a lot to offer including the major thing which it is famous for that is the Royal Bengal Tiger. Apart from that it is also a good bird sanctuary.

 The Sunderbans forest is about 80 kms south of Kolkata and they cover a vast area with forests and these are known as the largest mangrove forest in the world. You will ask what mangroves are.

 

The simple definition of mangroves is trees that grow in tropical saline wetlands and these have roots which are submerged in water or have the roots in the mud surrounded on all sides by water.

Tiger hunting has been going on for centuries and hence the tiger population in India has been struggling for survival. The population in the Sunderbans tiger reserve for the tigers is approximately 250.

The reason there is a good amount of tiger hunting or as they call it as tiger poaching which happens is because of the fact that tiger bones are used as ingredients in the making of some Chinese medicines. Also the skin of the tiger is used for making the fur clothes for use in cold regions of the world.

 

Siberian Tigers and the Royal Bengal tigers are the two most endangered kinds of tigers in the entire tiger species. The Siberian Tiger is found in the cold regions of Siberia and its total population in the world has been considered to be only about 1000 or so.

 

Royal Bengal Tiger is mainly found in the regions of the India and Bangladesh. In India at one time the population of the Royal Bengal Tiger was supposed to be only 250. After sustained efforts by the successive Indian governments the current population now stands in the region of 2000.

 

In the 1970’s and 1980’s the tiger population in India was such that at any point the Royal Bengal Tiger would have vanished from the face of the earth. This necessitated taking drastic steps to improve the efforts to save the Tiger from Extinction.

 

The Indian Government then headed by Indira Gandhi conceived of a project by the name of Project Tiger which was supposed to coordinate all the efforts to save the Bengal Tiger from extinction.

 

Project Tiger also involved demarcation of areas which would be considered as safe zone or areas for tigers. These areas would be such that there would be no urban settlements in those areas thereby providing natural habitat to the tigers.

 

27 areas in total were demarcated as the Tiger reserves. These areas are now monitored and controlled by the wildlife agencies to make sure that the tiger poaching does not happen in these areas. Some of the famous areas are the

JimCorbettNational Park

Sunderbans Tiger Reserve

RanthamboreNational Park

KahnaNational Park

 

Not all is happening according to ways of the Indian government as far as survival of the tigers goes. The tigers are poached even now because monitoring of vast areas of forests is not possible as well as the fact is that there are forest officials who would be conniving with the poachers and pocket some good gains for themselves.