Authorities in Bangladesh killed six tiger poachers over the
weekend during a shootout in a national park, police said.
The 45-minute
firefight erupted as police launched a crackdown in Sundarbans National Park,
according to SM Moniruzzaman, deputy inspector general of police in Khulna
Range. Five officers were injured in Saturday's shootout.
Police recovered
three tiger skins and five guns, Moniruzzaman said.
Sundarbans is about 180 kilometers (112 miles) southwest of
Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka.
The mangrove
forests of the park are home to rare creatures, including the endangered Royal
Bengal Tiger, according to the World Heritage Center.
They are the
only mangrove forests in the world where tigers are found.
The Bengal tiger
is found primarily in India, with smaller populations in Bangladesh, Nepal,
Bhutan, China and Myanmar, according to the World
Wildlife Fund. "It is the most numerous of all tiger subspecies
with fewer than 2,500 left in the wild," it said.
The World Wildlife
Fund estimates that a minimum of 106 tigers are left in Bangladesh.
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