Bengal tiger beaten to death in Bangladesh after killing 3 people

[Nagishkaw 510]

DHAKA (AFP) - Thousands of villagers armed with sticks and machetes beat to death a Royal Bengal tiger Saturday after it killed three people in southwestern Bangladesh, police said.

The critically endangered animal, one of about 600 in the Sunderbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, was lassoed after entering a village and killing three people Friday night, police chief Abdur Razzak said.

"More than 3,000 angry villagers spent the night looking for the tiger and when they learnt it had killed three goats early this morning (Saturday), they surrounded the area and caught it with a lasso," the local official said.

"They strung up the eight-feet (2.6-metres) long tiger and beat it to death," he told AFP.

A forest official said it was the first time in more than four years a tiger had been killed by people living near the 5,800 square kilometres (2,320 square miles) portion of the Sunderbans in Bangladesh.

"It was responsible for about half a dozen other deaths in recent months. It became a man-eater and every now and then it entered villages to look for prey," assistant forest conservator Rajesh Chakma said.

Chakma said the increasing human presence in the dense western part of the forest was mainly to blame for the growing number of tiger-related deaths.

Human beings are not natural prey of tigers. Some wildlife experts say the tigers turn to attacking people if they are incapacitated by injuries or old age. Tigers kill about 20 people every year in Bangladesh, officials say.

According to a UN-funded census, the 10,000 square kilometres Sunderbans mangrove forest, which straddles India and Bangladesh, is home to at least 668 Royal Bengal tigers, with some 420 living on the Bangladesh side.

Wildlife officials say the world's Royal Bengal tiger population has fallen to between 5,000 and 6,000 from around 100,000 at the turn of the last century due to poaching for their skins and bones, which are used in traditional medicines, and habitat loss due to human encroachment.

The Swiss-based International Nature Conservation Union has classified the Bengal Tigers as "critically endangered."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080621/wl_st...er_080621090538

[Niels Bohr 72]

In a way, these people are wrong to begin with. These tigers are loosing their habitat to human population increases. Those who are not well educated or informed about the issues of loosing a certain species within a bio-mass will affect the sustainability of the food-chain dramatically. The consequence will be to drastically improvise a new diet.

I prefer that there should be some human population control. Japan death rate is higher than their birth rate according to the CIA world fact book. Japan is promoting human reproduction through educational classes, and has a lower age of marriage. Unfortunately, with all those sexy japanese women with their innocent looks, there still less birth. COME ON PEOPLE! Move to Japan and start reproducing like crazy!

Back to the point, killing is wrong. We're not animals, we can rationalize. That is what seperates us from the animals in the first place.

[Ban Hammer 13,429]

roping a tiger?

[pbgirl 1]

Very sad. The poor animal was hunted down and tortured. In one sentence it says it killed three goats. And then it also killed three people. Sounds like the villagers were more alarmed that their goats were killed.

[jundp 191]

Very sad. The poor animal was hunted down and tortured. In one sentence it says it killed three goats. And then it also killed three people. Sounds like the villagers were more alarmed that their goats were killed.

Agreed.

[Nagishkaw 510]

They could have done it more humanely.