Six hunters of Bengal tigers killed in Bangladesh
Six illegal hunters of Bengal tigers were killed by police Sunday in the vast Sundarbans mangrove forest, south of the country, said local police.
According to reports, an exchange of fire broke out between a gang of poachers and police near a canal Sundarbans region considered the largest mangrove forest in the world, where the number of Bengal tigers fell to only a hundred, according to a recent official estimate.
Local authorities put forward their will to fight against poaching of the endangered species.
“Poachers shot at us while we were doing a raid on their hideout in the Mandarbaria channel. We responded: six poachers were killed in the shooting,” said the local police chief, Harendranath Sarker.
According to Harendranath Sarker, the interlacing rivers and canals of the region has become a major haunt of poachers. “They sell the bones of tigers, their meat and skin to large sums of money,” he said.
After the shootout, police discovered the skins of three adult tigers and seized four rifles and a pistol.
The agent said that this anti-poaching operation came after a study completed in April has shown that the population of these big cats was reduced to almost nothing in this forest stretching to India.
The neighboring India has the largest population of Bengal tigers identified with 2226 tigers.
