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They?ve tiger skin if you?ve money
It's available ? at Rs 6,000 per square foot, writes Sutirtho Patranobis.
The tiger count in the Sunderbans last year had tossed up a figure — 274 — a good 29 more than the previous count. Today, nobody buys that.
“Less than 100 is a closer figure,” says an official with a renowned international wildlife organisation, who took part in the 2004 census. Another wildlife expert says it is not more than 74. A closer look at one of the villages will tell you why.
Sample Moinpit. Just another village of India — poor and without power — during the day, Moinpit turns a hunting ground after dusk. Steel torches, fireflies and smugglers take over this village, located in a remote corner and accessible only after a three-hour boat journey.
Smugglers, who deal in rice, wheat, diesel and skin, both of tigers and deer, are willing to strike a deal in the open, provided the money comes then and there.
Tiger skin is available — at anything between Rs 5,000 and Rs 6,000 per square foot. Other parts like bones and teeth are sold in kilos and prices vary.
Male members of several families in Moinpit — which has only one telephone line and not a single stretch of pucca road — are part-time poachers. One such poacher comes out with the skin of a tiger, which he claims was trapped and beaten to death recently.
At least a dozen such hides are available for sale in different houses, villagers say.
The animal skins are smuggled out on Bangladeshi ships that stop for a while on their return from Kolkata. On Saturday evening, four such ships were suspiciously anchored off Moinpit, with diesel-run boats (bhotboti for locals) making several rounds to the village. Three of them were named Khulna, Moni, and Shawon. A villager says: "On the night of June 25, as many as seven skins were smuggled out in one of the ships."
And Moinpit is just one of the many villages.
Officials claim another pointer to the "actual" head count of tigers is the decreasing number of sightings these days. Earlier, cases of tigers swimming across to villages for some easy pickings were regularly reported. In the last two years, such sightings have become rare.
Former chief wildlife warden of West Bengal, Subimal Roy, admits the census figure does not always give the real picture. "Counting tigers in the Sunderbans is a problem because pugmarks disappear or can easily change shape in the mud. So, there is always the chance of double counting. Shrinking prey base is also a problem. There has never been any census on them."
