(IN): Cyclone Aila swallows Sunderbans tigers

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Cyclone Aila swallows Sunderbans tigers

 

27 May 2009, 0305 hrs IST, Prithvijit Mitra &

 

Monotosh Chakraborty, TNN

 

KOLKATA: It's not just residents of Kolkata who bore the brunt of Cyclone Aila.

Forest wardens fear that as the cyclone tore through the Sunderbans flooding

the mangrove forests, it may have killed more than a dozen of the highly

endangered Bengal tigers.

As the human toll from Monday's cyclone rose to 64, beat officers and range

officials in the Sunderbans feared hundreds of herbivores and at least a dozen

tigers might have been swept away by the giant waves that lashed the forests.

While a tiger had sneaked into the Jamespur village wading through the flood

waters and was tranquillised early on Tuesday morning, 20 crocodiles and two

spotted deer were found dead.

 

The full extent of the damage will be known only after an assessment by forest

teams. As per the last census, the Sunderbans had 265 tigers.

 

Pintu Mirdha of Jamespur got the shock of his life when he spotted a male

tiger crouching in his waterlogged cowshed. Mirdha managed to shut the

cowshed door and informed the forest department. But forest guards had to

wait for the water to recede to get close to the animal. Neighbours were

asked to evacuate as the animal paced up and down the locked cowshed. At around

1pm, when the water level went down during low tide, the male tiger was

tranquillised.

 

" It swam into the village that was left flooded after the cyclone. Since

most villagers weren't present at the submerged huts, no one noticed the

animal, " said Subrat Mukherjee, field director, Sunderban Tiger Reserve.

 

" A storm like this has never hit the Sunderbans in the last three decades.

Going by the extent of damage to the villages, the state of the forest could

be terrible. Forests remained under eight feet of water till late Tuesday

afternoon. Immediately after Aila hit, it had gone up to 20 feet, " said

Mrinal Chattopadhyay of the Institute of Climbers and Nature Lovers.

 

" Even if tigers manage to swim to higher grounds, deer and wild

boars must have been swept away, " he said. Wardens fear that even if tigers

survived the giant waves, the lack of prey will certainly kill them.

 

But some forest officials were cautious. " We shall study the damage once the

water level goes down, " said Subhendu Bandopadhyay, divisional forest

officer, South 24-Parganas. Beat wardens, however, said no assessment would

be possible until the waters recede and that could take weeks. By that time

many of the carcasses would have disintegrated to nothing.

 

 

 

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