The Sunderbans
Bangladesh Swamp
Mighty Ganges
This is the end of the line for the mighty Ganges. it's the swamp of the Sundarbans, on the coast of Bangladesh. On the ground here, it feels and smells like an alien world. The whole place is pervaded by the stench of rotting eggs, generated by sulphur-belching bacteria. It's certainly a lot less inviting than the Pantanal.
It's surprising that anything survives here at all, because life in this place has to survive some pretty tough challenges.
For a start, the silt. You see, when the water reaches the coast, only the finest particles are held in suspension and when they dropout, they form this… Thick, gloopy mud.
It's so thick, that not even air can penetrate it, so no oxygen can get into the soil. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, twice a day, with the rise and fall of the tide, this whole place floods.
Precious nutrients, in the form of leaves, are flushed out to sea. And, worst of all, everything is drenched in bitter salty water, which very few plants can tolerate.
Black-capped Kingfisher
But the Sundarbans is not the hell on earth that it might seem. Look at this beauty! A black-capped kingfisher. A brahminy kite. There are enough fish here to support millions of people. Macaque monkeys… chital deer, too. And there is one creature that is a very special.
But it's extremely well hidden. It's also a man-eater. After that tantalising and remarkable view of an animal, we've been able to follow a diary of its movements, here in the mud. And, if you look, you can see that the tiger has come here.
Here's a pug mark, here's another, here are three more. But I think what's happened here is that the tiger has come to this point, it's changed its mind, and it's turned around, headed back this way. And it's gone off, into the forest.
And this is not a one-off. Pictures from our camera traps reveal, that living in this salty, drowned forest is a large population of Bengal tigers. Surely one of nature's most magnificent predators.
