Wednesday, May 25 2005 11:28 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kolkata: It is poaching of a different kind. While tigers have been killed in Sariska and other national parks the famous Royal Bengal variety of the big cat in the Sunderbands faces dwindling prey base caused by poaching.

In the world's largest mangrove tiger-land near Kolkata, the big cat is facing scarcity of food as poaching of its favourite prey, the spotted deer, has been on the rise in recent years.

Wildlife officials say if the trend continues, it would be difficult for the tiger to sustain itself on the available prey base in the 4000 sq km forests.

If it fails to get its prey inside the forest, it would stray into villages in the vicinity and hunt for cattle or humans, which in turn could result in killing of the big cats by angry villagers, says Director of Sundarban Biosphere Reserve Atanu Raha.

"Yes, it is a cause for concern. There have been cases of poaching of spotted deer. We have begun a massive campaign to stop villagers from eating deer meat. If there is no ready market, the demand for meat would go down. But it is a tough task since the forests are a huge open resource with lakhs of people inhabiting its fringes," he says.

The reserve, which accounted for 274 tigers in the last census conducted in 2004, has only 150 forest staff to man its borders, Raha says adding the number is dismally low to put either a check on poaching or take up conservation efforts.

The 'conservation first' approach of the campaign involves making people aware of the evils of eating into the tiger's prey base and taking villagers into confidence by making them 'informers'.

"If herbivores flourish, so will the tigers," Raha says.

Sundarban Tiger Reserve Field Director Pradip Vyas says though deer meat is not seen in the local village markets any longer, it was difficult to say if deer poaching has been totally checked in the region.

"How can one rule out secret poaching at some places? There still are pockets where we are not as confident as certain others," he says.

As far as tiger poaching was concerned, Sunderbands had a fairly good track record with five cases detected in the last one decade, Raha says.

"But whenever a tiger skin is recovered from Kolkata, everybody starts shouting that a tiger has been killed in Sunderbands. People forget that Kolkata serves as a conduit for most wildlife products being smuggled out from places like Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh to neighbouring countries via Siliguri," he says.

Citing an instance of 1996 when a parcel containing 99 leopard skins and a tiger skin was intercepted at Siliguri, he said though there were no leopards in Sunderbands, many environment groups had raised a hue and cry that a tiger had been killed in the reserve. It eventually turned out to be a parcel from Kanpur.

Suggesting a thorough genome-mapping programme to pinpoint the exact location of poached tigers, Raha says that was the most scientific way to pinpoint the tiger reserve suffering the most from poaching.

"Over the last 100 years, eco-separation of tigers from the Kanha, Sundarban and Tarai regions has isolated them into distinct categories. There is no cross-interaction between these groups. They have developed genetic traits adapting to their individual ecosystems," he says.

The Sunderband tiger reserve had suggested to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) as well as the Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) to collaborate in developing a genome map for tigers of the region, he says, but funds crunch had come in the way.