Essay by Eric Worrall
If large predators keep eating people in your village, the solution is to build wind turbines and install solar panels?
Climate change adds to woes of ‘tiger widows’ of Sunderbans
As per locals, there are thousands of tiger widows in the expansive Sunderbans region-their lives riddled with social ostracisation, financial instability, and psychological distress
Gosaba (Sundarbans),, Updated At : 06:52 PM Feb 21, 2026 IST…
Rina, like several of her companions, is a “tiger widow” — a local woman whose husband has been taken by the Bengal tiger.
“In 2022, my husband Sudipto Sarkar went to catch fish and crabs, and never returned. He was killed by a tiger,” Rina says as her voice trails off.
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The situation has been exacerbated in recent years, amid rising instances of human-tiger conflict, primarily due to the adverse effects of climate change.
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Umashankar Mandal, founder of PEHS, says, “Since many men enter the forests without official permits, their deaths are often considered illegal, disqualifying their families from receiving government compensation.” This leaves numerous tiger widows vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Several studies have revealed cases of physical abuse, sexual exploitation, and trafficking into sex work.
Read more: https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/india/climate-change-adds-to-woes-of-tiger-widows-of-sunderbans/
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I feel sorry for Rana and all the women who lost their husbands to tiger predation.
But here’s a radical idea. Why not arm the menfolk with guns, so they can go into the Sunderbans and shoot a few tigers?
They don’t have to kill them all. Big predators are smart, they very quickly learn to avoid people with long pointy things, after watching all their friends get shot. They should at least kill the man eaters.
There is something very Indian about bureaucrats just letting people get eaten, without doing anything concrete to stop the carnage, because the victims don’t have the right permit. Or just sitting around blaming externalities like climate change when they should be organising tiger hunts.
I once read a story about the Madras nuclear power plant. The giant Asian Tsunami of 2004 allegedly blocked the cooling water inlet with debris. Thankfully the plant was in a partial shutdown state for maintenance at the time of the disaster. After the Tsunami devastation receded, the plant operators reportedly ran simulations which suggested blocking the cooling water inlet would not have caused a meltdown, cleared away the mud and debris, and restarted the plant.
There were some concerns raised at the time about the realism of the simulations, the possibility the simulations possibly missed a few factors. .
When I told my friend Bhavesh, he laughed and replied “In India, you have to believe in God“.
To be fair, years after the Tsunami, particularly in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, there were renewed efforts to improve flood resilience. Let’s hope those flood resilience upgrade efforts were successful. And let’s hope someone organises a tiger hunt, to try to prevent the tragic deaths of people trying to make a living in the Sunderbans, regardless of whether they have the right permit.
Tigers learning that people are easy prey …..
😉
https://share.google/images/SZjGyqNdjESHF9HeC
That’s because they are copycats.
ha–ha ! 🙂
Not funny, actually . . . and I believe Mr Worrall has very unusually got the tone of his article entirely wrong.
Think about the screeching and ululation of educationally subnormal people about the catastrophic increase in the cost of damage due to extreme weather events. All due to catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, of course. Well, looking at just two regions prone to extreme weather events – the population of Florida in 1926 was 1.3 million and in 2026 it’s 23 million. More people, more homes, more businesses, more infrastructure. And the Indus Valley (Pakistan) – the population in 1926 was ~15 million . . . and it’s now 255 million.
So these ululating idiotic screeching educationally subnormal people can simply be told to . . . piss off.
And it’s the same in the Sunderbans region. One hundred years ago, the population was no more than a few hundred thousand. It’s now over 4 million, and that means encroachment of people into the habitat of tigers. And these people will be hunting the prey of the tigers – illegally by the sound of it – which puts pressure on the tiger population. And tigers will then behave . . . like tigers.
So this situation has precisely nothing to do with climate change and everything to do with . . . people. And the last thing you’d want to do is arm these bloody people – the tiger population would be decimated in short order, the poachers no doubt selling their disgusting plunder to . . . the Chinese.
Upon reflection, I think you’ve made a very good point. I may have commented a bit too quickly earlier. That said, I heard a few years ago that people were being devoured by tigers simply by driving their car into their garage. So there’s no need to venture into the bush to be attacked.
Now, it can’t be denied that humans are expanding into territories that once belonged to big cats. I would probably prefer to live in New Delhi rather than next to the habitat of those very large felines.
Indian deaths by cause are unreliable. when I was growing up in Central India, there were a lot of snake bite deaths. It happened when there was an inconvenient death — someone bashed his wife a bit too hard or a fight go out of hand. The village did not want a police investigation, so the headman reported “snake bite”.
There were tigers in the jungle across the river. Very useful for dealing with cows that were past it — send them across the river to feed tigers. If you paid a big enough bribe, you could get one declared a man-eater and get a permit to shoot it. Even in village gossip there was not a hint of tigers killing men, and through some workers, I even got gossip from the tribal people living across the river.
Men do die in “inconvenient” ways. That area has their explanation for when the head of the panchiat files a death notice to the District Commissioner.
I thought climate change would kill tigers.
Except that tiger numbers are increasing. !
Tiger conservation success in 2023 | ZSL
Roar Returns to the Mangroves: Sundarbans Tigers on the Rise This International Tiger Day
Equivalent headline – “Men killed by tigers – women hardest hit due to climate change.”
Yes, it really is that ridiculous.
Meaning no disrespect for the deceased, Mr. Sudipto Sarkar but an anagram of his given name leaps off the page.
Has to be true. About three years ago they built a solar farm not far from where I live in S.W Arkansas. Haven’t had a tiger attack since.
Any attacks by wild boars? I have seen videos of them running wild in Texas.
One day the Times of India claims:
“…..no suitable tiger habitat will be left in the Sundarbans by 2070 because of climate change and rise in sea level, ……”
The Sundarbans is on the Ganges etc. delta and rapidly sinking for a variety of reasons, some man-induced such as dams upstream affecting silt replenishment, but sea level rise (i.e. supposed climate change) is a small contributor.
Then the Times shows the Tiger reserve extension.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/with-1044-sq-km-more-sundarbans-set-to-be-2nd-largest-tiger-reserve-in-india/articleshow/123391997.cms
Although low historically, the population of Royal Bengal Tigers has increased to about 125 over the last decade.
It is illegal to kill them, and authorities prefer to relocate, rather than kill, man-eaters.
No doubt the human population has also increased, and being excluded from Tiger reserves, and crowded around the margins, are more attacks not inevitable?
Climate change, as always, is a convenient expedient scapegoat, but only a bit player at worst.
“by 2070″ end of thought process.
Use that thinking power to bet on the stock market.
If it works out, whatever the worry used to be, who cares?
News Tip:
France declares war on meat — RT World News
The newly published ”national strategy for food, nutrition, and climate: 2025-2030” points out that “32% of the adult population consumes too much meat other than poultry,” “63% too much cold cuts,” and not enough fruits and vegetables. You can probably guess what comes next.
Tigers exempted.
Reads like an ad for Chik Fil A.
Don’t get me started, I’m desperate. The government has no business lecturing me—or my fellow citizens—about what we put on our plates. I have every right to eat cured meats if I feel like it. The smoked and dried meats from Franche-Comté are absolutely delicious, I love bone-in Normandy ham, and I’ll never say no to a good choucroute with slices of melting bacon and jésus de Morteau sausage (yes, a French cured meat really is called that), or to an Alsatian baeckeoffe. My God, how tasty and succulent it is to be a bad citizen!
“If large predators keep eating people in your village, the solution is to build wind turbines and install solar panels?”
Yes, if we eliminate the jungle and build solar panels where the jungle used to be then there will be no large predators to attack the village.
Villagers can sign a series of favorable treaties with the large predators that neither the villagers nor the predators intend to honor, forcing the large predators onto reservations with the worst geography for being predators? Then the large predators can open large predator casinos and take all the villagers’ money?
“They don’t have to kill them all.” I suspect that’s correct even for alligators and sharks. Excuse for shark attacks is something like “….just a few and more are killed by lightning.”
I just learned a new phrase (Normative Science) which has apparently been around for a long time. Value judgements interference with science which I had long been acquainted with in fisheries and once stopped a class too often writing de facto “delicate.” I had been given a copy of Roy Spencer’s The Great Global Warming Blunder which I had not adequately read until recently. His last reference is Robert T. Lackey. Normative Science. Fisheries. 29(2004):38-59.
No, wait, something is wrong here. The climate zealots, led by Bill Gates, want world population reduced to ~500 million. The climate enraged tigers are clearly helping. But we want more windmills and solar farms too! What do we do?
This is such a powerful and heartbreaking story — putting a human face on the impacts of climate change really drives home how urgent and complex the challenges are, reading about the Bengali widows who lost their husbands to tiger attacks shows how environmental shifts ripple through communities, affecting livelihoods, safety, and family structures in ways most of us rarely think about, it’s a stark reminder that climate issues aren’t abstract — they’re deeply personal and affect real lives, at the same time, stories like this make me reflect on how communities adapt over time, from redesigning homes and infrastructure to creating safer living spaces, similar to the way thoughtful planning and improvements in a resilient home update can help protect against local environmental stresses. Thank you for highlighting this — it’s the kind of reporting that encourages deeper understanding and empathy.
Huh?
What a load of sappy, incoherent nonsense. !
Do you really think Bengal tigers have only just started eating humans.
Here’s what AI thinks you’re talking about –
What self-respecting tiger would chow down on that ponce?
Who knows what they’d catch?
I was thinking it was written by AI.
AI generated nonsense – was it Copilot?
Don’t click on the link, it’s an ad for who knows what
This aibot crap is showing up everywhere, see it in “news” reporting daily.
Seems to be AI generated climate activist word soup to cover an ad. link.
Nice bit of aibot generated crap.
deaths are often considered illegal, disqualifying their families from receiving government compensation.
There is more to the story, but it is way beyond my ability to track it down and report it.
My guess, the tigers view the men as intruders seeking the prey the god of the Sundarbans (Beautiful Forest) put there for the cats. I recall there is an award for people that put themselves in harm’s way and die.
Illegal because the men went into the protected Tiger reserve.
Thus Nature has fangs and claws. Well then, men have guns to defend themselves. I hope they still have enough common sense left to decide to use them in order to save their own skin.
As usual, the alarmists will never fail to attribute climate change to any event that can’t be explained otherwise. Here’s yet another example.
Years ago I saw a show about tigers killing people. It wasn’t common but common enough that when people went out to work they took to wearing a mask with a face painted on it on the back of their heads. Tiger attacks were usually from behind.
There’s only 3,000 or so Bengal tigers left in India so the loss of the odd husband in a country whose population is almost 1.5 billion, is likely seen as trivial. Factor in said husbands were technically killed during the commission of a crime, and they are arguably responsible for their own deaths.
Exactly how climate change is supposed to relate to any of this isn’t clear. Are folk trying to claim humans are only now trespassing in tiger territory because of climate change? India has a long history of conflict between tigers and people whereas climate change was only invented in the last few decades.
They don’t have to kill them all. Big predators are smart, they very quickly learn to avoid people with long pointy things, after watching all their friends get shot.
We used to do that with crocodiles in northern Australia until the 1970s ban and now we’re overrun with them around civilisation with the inevitable-
Crocodile attack in WA’s Kimberley region prompts calls for more awareness
I can second that.
Several times in 1974-7 I stood on rocks, fishing for barramundi, just below Cahill’s Crossing where the Border Store is. I would fish until the rising tide reached my waist. Had a tiny boat to get back to shore. Seldom saw a croc, knew they were there, but they avoided us by moving away as soon as they saw us.
Then, in 1987, after croc shooting stopped, one of our employees slipped off the causeway and in a minute or so was killed by a croc in the same spot. I still get nightmares when I think of that waist deep fishing. Geoff S
Here in Teller County Colorado we have mountain lions , bears and coyotes & some smaller : foxes & bobcats .
They all seem to respect humans & know not to mess w us . ( The bears can be a nuisance , having learned how to open car doors . )
Wolves , imported from as far away as British Columbia for some crazy green reason have been killing cattle , but I’ve not heard of any killing people . Even so , we and our ranchers are armed , and one would be quickly dead .
“Wolves , imported from as far away as British Columbia…”
Wolves were brought back to Yellowstone to restore the ecological balance that had been disrupted by their absence, as they are a keystone species. The story is here: https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/wildlife/wolf-reintroduction-changes-ecosystem/
Your milage may vary.
Maybe there is a re-incarnated Jim Corbett, the British killer of man eating beasts, somewhere.
I loved his books as a child–great adventure and he saved many “native” lives.
“Man Eaters of Kumaon” was experiences of ex-British soldier’s experience hunting man eating tigers in India after WW2. The man eating tigers he killed typically had some form of physical damage that made it more difficult to hunt/kill. People were easy prey and then became their primary source of food. The storys are not about a macho hunter looking for trophies – he just made life better for people in rural villages terrified by the man eater. Good read.
Someone who regularly hunts tigers has my respect, fast, strong and deadly, and really good at hiding.
Someone who hunts tigers, or someone who hunts (4 pawed) killers?
So, the rising numbers of tigers had nothing to do with it? And did all of them get eaten by tigers? Or did some of them use this as a cover to leave for greener pastures, perhaps as illegal alien truck drivers in America? Unless remains were recovered I remain less than convinced. Oh, and climate change has nothing to do with either.
I think it would be a great idea to arm all manly men with a Marlin 45-70 Govt or maybe a .416 Ruger. Also, have Indians heard of things like fences?
When hunting crabs in tiger country brandish that banana!!!
Don’t Indians have trouble with elephants trampling them? In many eastern cultures it’s against ‘the law or religion’ to kill animals, especially useful ones like elephants and cows.
The Indian government’s prioritizing animals over humans has other examples. One of the worst was passage of a law forbidding the killing of dogs – including rabid dogs. As a result, the incidence of human rabies fatalities went from next to nothing to (IIRC) some 50,000 a year. Rabies is easily treated with the vaccine and human rabies antibody injections, but only if they are administered before the disease symptoms present. After that, it is 100% fatal. The vaccine isn’t readily available in rural areas, and the antibodies are so expensive that I doubt any Indian in a position to need them could afford them.