Shrimp fry are being collected at unsustainable levels to supply the shrimp grow-out industry, and forests are cleared for grow-out ponds. About half of the mangrove forests have been cut for fuelwood. This ecoregion extends across two countries with some of the highest human population densities in the world thus anthropogenic threats are intense. More than 170 bird species are known from the mangrove forests, including 12 birds of prey that coexist. More unobtrusive but equally fascinating are the mudskippers, an air-breathing fish that climbs out of the water into mudflats and even climbs trees. Sharks and the Gangetic dolphins patrol the waterways. The water monitor lizard, which can grow up to 9 feet in length and is the second largest lizard in the world, uses both land and water to hunt. Two species of crocodiles, the mugger and the salt-water crocodile, inhabit the waterways and the shores.
The channels also harbor large, dangerous predators.īrown-winged kingfisher. As its name implies, the fishing cat, a mid-sized wild cat with leopard-like spots gets into the water to catch fish and crabs along the channel edges. In addition to the tiger and its prey species, the mangrove islands of this ecoregion also support several other threatened mammals, including fishing cats, jungle cats, pangolins, and flying foxes. Nipa, a palm adapted to estuaries and mangroves, line the channels. While the tree community is dominated by Heritiera, other mangrove trees include species of Avicennia, Xylocarpus, Sonneratia, Bruguiera, Cereops, Aegicera, and Rhizophora. Undisturbed forests have a dense canopy and an undergrowth of seedlings and saplings of the canopy trees. The mangroves are not as diverse compared to most other terrestrial ecosystems. Annual rainfall exceeds 3,500 mm, and daytime temperatures can reach a stifling 48☌ during the monsoon months. Strong monsoons from the Bay of Bengal bring heavy rains and devastating cyclones that cause widespread destruction. The Sundarbans Mangrove ecoregion lies in a vast delta, an area over 10,000 km 2 formed by the confluence of South Asia’s largest rivers, the Ganges, Hooghly, Padma, Brahmaputra and Meghna. The flagship species of the Sundarbans Mangroves eocregion is the Heritiera fomes. The people who venture into these mangrove forests to gather honey, fish, and cut trees to make charcoal also fall victim to the tigers on occasion. This mangrove is unique in that it supports a large, viable population of Asia’s largest predator, the tiger, living and swimming among the mangrove islands, searching for and preying on chital deer, wild pig, and even macaque monkeys. The ecosystem is now one of the World’s Natural Wonders, and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Named after the dominant mangrove tree species, Heritiera fomes, known as sundri in Bengali, Sundarbans itself literally means ‘beautiful forest’ in Bengali. The Sundarbans is the largest mangrove ecosystem in the world.
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