AFP•
Bengal tiger cubs at a wildlife shelter in El Salvador (AFP Photo/Marvin RECINOS)
Bangladesh
police on Monday rescued four tiger and lion cubs that they said were
being smuggled to India and arrested two suspects.
Police
said they were investigating whether the tiger cubs were poached from
the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, which has a
significant population of endangered Bengal tigers.
But they had no idea where the lion cubs could have come from.
Police
acting on a tip-off found the animals in wooden boxes in a car in the
western city of Jessore, district police chief Anisur Rahman told AFP.
"We
detained two people in this connection. They are animal smugglers who
were delivering the cubs to a man at Sharsha," Rahman said, referring to
a town on the Indian border.
"We suspect they were being brought here to be smuggled to India," he said.
Bangladesh brought in new laws in 2010 to protect wildlife, but poaching remains rampant.
In 2012, the country's elite police rescued three Bengal tiger cubs after a raid in the capital.
The
tiger population in the 10,000 square-kilometre (3,861 square-mile)
Sunderbans forest dropped to just over 100 in 2015 from an estimated 440
a decade earlier.
The
rescue comes just months after Bangladesh police declared victory over
crime in the Sundarbans, crediting a gun buyback scheme.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/bangladesh-police-rescue-tigers-lions-smugglers-095412403.html
https://www.yahoo.com/news/bangladesh-police-rescue-tigers-lions-smugglers-095412403.html
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