Research overview: prey dynamics for Sundarbans tigers under climate stress

Sundarbans tigers rely on prey such as spotted deer (chital) and wild boar, whose abundance depends on mangrove forest condition and freshwater availability. This overview surveys how climate-driven changes, salinity, vegetation shifts, and freshwater scarcity, may affect prey populations and thereby tiger carrying capacity in the delta. It reviews the difficulty of surveying prey in dense, tidal, partly flooded mangrove terrain and the methods used to estimate prey density. The synthesis frames prey as the link between habitat change and tiger numbers, explaining why projections of Sundarbans tiger futures increasingly consider the food base alongside the physical loss of land to rising seas.