Research overview: tigers of the Sundarbans mangrove forest

The Sundarbans, a vast tidal mangrove forest straddling India and Bangladesh, hosts a tiger population unlike any other. This overview reviews how these tigers swim between islands, drink brackish or saline water, hunt prey such as spotted deer, wild boar, and aquatic species, and navigate a landscape reshaped twice daily by tides and periodically by cyclones. It examines the unusually high rate of human-tiger conflict in the region, the influence of salinity and limited fresh water on tiger condition, and the challenges of monitoring cats in dense, flooded terrain. The synthesis highlights extreme behavioral and ecological flexibility under harsh, dynamic conditions. For those fascinated by big cat adaptability the Sundarbans tiger represents a striking case of a forest predator that has become semi-aquatic, thriving where land and sea continually trade places.