Repair of existing nylon nets, erection of nets in new conflict zones and awareness campaigns.
The forest department is banking on steps like these to mitigate the tiger-man conflict in the Sunderbans as winter knocks on the doors. Between December 2021 and February 2022, at least eight tigers strayed from the forests into villages or their fringes in the mangrove delta.
Each tiger was eventually captured and released back into the forest. No human life was lost but each intrusion triggered panic among residents.
“We are repairing existing nets. We are also setting up nets in some new areas. The tenders have been floated,” said Debal Ray, the chief wildlife warden of Bengal. Last year, most of the tiger intrusions were reported from the South 24-Parganas forest division.
“The new nets will span 12km across the forest ranges of Matla, Raidighi and Ramganga. Tigers strayed into each of these areas last time,” said Milan Mandal, the DFO of South 24-Parganas division.
In late December 2021, a big cat crossed the Matla river and took shelter in the dense mangrove cover on the river bed on the outskirts of a village in Kultali. The animal had evaded traps and cameras for five days, foresters said. In late February this year, a tiger was spotted on Bhubaneswari char near the Ramganga range, a land built by periodical soil accretion.
It was the first time that a tiger was spotted in the area, according to foresters. The forest department is also organising awareness camps in the villages.
“School children and a section of local residents are included in the campaigns. They are telling villagers that they should not form a crowd every time a tiger is spotted in the vicinity. In several rescue operations in the past, people eager to take a picture on their cellphones have proved to be the biggest hurdle,” said a forest official.
In August this year, this newspaper reported on increasing breaches in nylon nets that mark the boundaries of the forests, adding fodder to the man-wild conflict. Many of the breaches were man-made.
A significant section of the population living in the villages on the fringes of the forests, unable to find a steady alternative income in the wake of the loss of livelihood triggered by the pandemic, made holes in the nets to enter the forests to catch crab, fish and firewood.
The breaches have a twopronged threat. Several people have been killed by tigers while trying to catch crabs and fish inside the forests.
The tigers also use the holes to come out of the forests and stray into villages.
“The existing nylon net fencing in South 24-Parganas spans 62km (minus the new nets). We have repaired the boundary to the best of our ability. The nets are still weak at some places but across the entire length, the nets are erect,” said an official.
The Wildlife Institute of India was entrusted with preparing a report on the surge in human-wildlife conflict in the mangrove delta. The institute had said Sunderbans might have almost as many tigers as the forests can accommodate and that could be one of the reasons for the rise in the number of big cats straying near human habitats.
