10 April 2023

The big cat count in the Sunderbans has hit a century, a report on tiger census across the country that was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said.

The report, titled Status of Tigers 2022, was released by the Prime Minister at a programme in Mysore to commemorate 50 years of Project Tiger.

“There are at least 100 tigers in the Sunderbans. The actual number would be more because the estimate does not include cubs as they have a high mortality rate,” said a state forest department official. In the Sunderbans, the tiger count hovered around the 96 mark in two successive state-level censuses, in 2019-20 and 2020-21.

The report says 100 different tigers were photographed across the Sunderbans — in the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve and the South 24-Parganas range. The country-wide estimate of big cats is conducted every four years.

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