Sunderbans is home to the Royal Bengal Tiger and is also the world’s largest mangrove forest. Thanks to relentless poaching of the spotted deer, one of the favourite prey of the big cat, the tiger population is faced with a scarcity of food.

The menace, growing with each passing year, needs to be tackled urgently. Wild life officials maintain that otherwise the big cat might grow old at a tender age.

The hunt for an ‘old-age home for frail tigers’ has recently been undertaken by West Bengal Forest Directorate in one of the isolated island of the Sunderbans.

Officials have also undertaken a campaign to ensure protection of the deer population from poachers to enable the tigers to hunt and sustain themselves in

the 4000 sq km forest.

“Foraying into neighbouring villages will be a common thing once the prey

base starts dwindling in the core area. After targeting cattle or domestic animals, tigers will prey on humans and the resulting confrontation will inevitably lead to increased killing of the big cat,” said Mr Atanu Raha, Director of Sunderbans Biosphere Reserve.

Already a world heritage site, the fragile ecology of the Sunderbans has been a cause of international concern and the forest department here wants to tread cautiously when it actually embarks on the job of building an old age home for the frail and hungry tigers over a 45 hectare land on Jharkhali island in Sunderbans that is likely to start functioning from end of 2006.

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.

But the daunting task that confronts the forest department personnel, is the huge area and a large population that inhabits the fringe of the forest.

Equipped with a staff of 150, it is next to impossible to physically man the border of the mangrove that has 274 tigers as per the 2004 census.