A sustained and coordinated enforcement drive across Bangladesh’s Sundarbans has sharply reduced deer poaching and poison fishing over the past year, triggering a measurable recovery in prey species and a reported rise in tiger sightings, forest officials and local communities said.
The forest department mounted 474 operations in Sundarbans between May 2025 and April 2026, dismantling a vast network of illegal traps and arresting 377 people across 241 cases. Officers removed nearly 114,553 feet of deer-snaring traps, along with 813 sitka traps and 2,294 walk traps, which the department estimates would otherwise have killed several thousand deer, wild boar, monkeys and tigers.
Confiscations also included 448 boats and trawlers, 8,381 illegal crab traps, 300 feet of netting, 724 kg of toxin-tainted fish and 1,066 kg of crab.
Seizures of contraband deer meat dropped from 750 kg the previous year to 250 kg, a decline the department attributes directly to the crackdown.
The enforcement drives combined foot patrols, modern surveillance and expanded use of drones. Divisional Forest Officer Md Rezaul Karim Chowdhury said the department had prosecuted 70 individuals for laying traps and sent 300 fishermen to jail for poison fishing and illegal entry. A further 396 people face charges under forestry law.
The effect on the ecosystem is now visible. Fishermen and honey collectors who have worked the forest for up to 15 years report encountering tiger pugmarks and hearing tiger calls with a frequency absent for more than a decade. They describe larger numbers of deer, wild boar and crocodiles, and more frequent sightings of tigers swimming across rivers. Birdlife has also rebounded, with increased observations of ruddy kingfisher, white-bellied sea eagle and masked finfoot among other species.
“If the forest is healthy, the wildlife will be healthy,” DFO Chowdhury said. “The participation of local people in protecting the forest is the single most important factor. If the tiger — at the top of the food chain — is protected, the whole Sundarbans ecosystem remains protected.”
Ecologists say the mechanism is straightforward. Deer are the Sundarbans’ primary herbivore and the principal prey of the Royal Bengal tiger. As deer numbers recover, tiger presence follows. The suppression of poison fishing and wildlife poaching has, they argue, restored conditions favourable to the broader food web. Dr Mohammad Raihan Ali, director of a research institute studying the Sundarbans and coastal ecosystem, said the interdependence of the ecosystem’s elements made such a positive cascade only natural.
The forest department claims illegal fishing and crab harvesting inside the Kotka, Kochikhali, Kokilmoni and Tiyarchar sanctuaries have fallen to negligible levels. It has also intensified the removal of gillnets from dolphin sanctuaries, pursued a plastic-free policy at tourist sites and expanded drone surveillance over fire-prone areas.
Officials said awareness campaigns had also shifted the behaviour of forest-adjacent communities: over the past year, locals spared three spotted deer, one tiger and 37 pythons that had strayed into villages, handing them back to forest officials rather than killing them.
A 2024 survey recorded 125 tigers in the Sundarbans. The department expects the next survey to show an increase if the current conservation tempo is maintained.
Significant threats persist, however. Officials acknowledge that several organised bandit groups remain active inside the forest, fuelling anxiety among fishermen and honey collectors. The sheer size of the Sundarbans, limited manpower and the silting of rivers and channels — which eases access for criminals — compound the enforcement challenge.
Shaikh Faridul Islam, the state minister for environment, forest and climate change, said the ministry stood ready to take all necessary measures to protect the Sundarbans and that joint-force operations against forest bandits were underway. “Everyone’s cooperation is essential to protect this critical national asset,” he said.