Tracing the history of Bengal Tigers in the Chattogram Hill Tracts

In 1786, Sir William Jones travelled from Calcutta to Chattogram seeking a change of air. Back then, the weather of Chattogram was cool and pleasant and the region was considered one of the prime health stations of Bengal.

Captivated by the region's charm, Jones stayed for six months, writing letters to his friends that praised its natural beauty and the abundance of wildlife.

However, this harmony between humans and nature began to crumble when the British started cutting down forests and levelling hills to build bungalows. The wild animals, especially tigers, were soon driven to desperation.

Deprived of prey, they occasionally ventured into human settlements, and there are even accounts of tigers carrying people off from places like Chawkbazar in broad daylight.

Much like the Sundarbans, the Royal Bengal Tiger once roamed freely through the Chattogram Hill Tracts (CHT). The bustling hill towns of today, dotted with cottages and hotels, were once perilous terrains where few dared to travel except the indigenous hill people.

Even the British, despite clearing land for their bungalows, regarded most areas as untamed territory. As RH Sneyd Hutchinson, the then British administrator of CHT, once remarked, "Anyone venturing into the region had to be armed with a gun and a rifle."

Awe and empathy

British officer Thomas Herbert Lewin, in his memoir 'A Fly on the Wheel', often wrote about his encounters with tigers in the CHT. Despite the fear they inspired, he was deeply struck by their beauty — seeing them bathed in sunlight filtering through the trees, beside waterfalls, and on hillsides.

Lewin's translated excerpts, published under the title 'Thangaliana', contain several such vivid accounts: a "Tiger Saheb" dozing peacefully on a path; a fierce tigress gently nursing her cubs on a hillside; a tiger lowering its head to drink from a cool forest stream. In one close call, Lewin nearly stepped on a sleeping tiger without realising it.

There is even a humorous incident in which a Shendu hillman sought justice from Lewin after a tiger blocked his path while he was delivering government papers. Terrified, the man dropped the documents and fled, later appealing to Lewin to punish the tiger for causing the loss of the official papers!

Tiger trouble in the Pakistan era

Even during the Pakistan period, the hill communities faced constant trouble from tigers.

The two main causes behind their decline were hunting and the loss of prey. During the British era, tiger hunting was not only tolerated but often celebrated as a sport. Later, deforestation, the spread of tea gardens, and expanding settlements worsened the tigers' food crisis. By the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, reports of tiger attacks on livestock became commonplace in CHT.

In the 1950s, Yusuf S Ahmed, then Inspector General of Forests in the Kasalong Reserved Forest, often received complaints about tigers killing villagers' cows and poultry. Reluctantly, he agreed to hunt one at the locals' insistence.

But when he finally encountered the tigress, she was lying on the ground, tenderly nursing her cubs. The sight melted his heart. Instead of pulling the trigger, he fired into the air. The mother and her cubs fled deep into the jungle, leaving him profoundly relieved.

A few days later, however, word spread that the same tigress had entered a Chakma village and killed a cow — and this time, the villagers killed her.

Around the same period, renowned hunter Enayet Maula visited the area. Near Mainimukh, outside the reserve forest, tigers were reportedly wreaking havoc. After repeated complaints, he set out to hunt one. His first shot only wounded it, and the tiger rolled on the ground, roaring furiously. After a second shot, it fell silent.

In his memoir 'When I Was a Hunter', Enayet recounted another chilling experience, "Two tiger cubs were playing. To scare them, I fired between them. Immediately, the mother tigress leapt out, rushed to her cubs, then turned her head and looked at me. With a low growl, she charged forward. I froze. She stopped just short, staring at me. Her yellow eyes still float before my eyes."

He noted that the tigers of this remote region were unfamiliar with humans — they had not yet learned to be wary. After he shot one, another stood nearby, unafraid and still.

Cunning of the tiger

Ershad Ullah Khan's experience, however, was quite the opposite. In the 1960s, while stationed in the Morachhengi region of Rangamati, he and his team spent weeks trying to hunt a particularly cunning tiger that had killed 50 to 60 cows and buffaloes. 

Unlike most, this tiger never returned to its kills — it would eat what it could and vanish into the forest, eluding hunters for nearly a month.

In his book 'Shikar Kahini of Chittagong', Ershad described one scene vividly, "The cow weighed about two maunds. Only its two front legs were left — the rest was torn apart like a chicken roast. Minutes later, we heard the sound of flesh being ripped. The constable beside me said, 'Dada, it sounds like a machine grinding bamboo into pulp at the Kaptai Paper Mill'."

Tigers began disappearing from the Hill Tracts before the 1980s, yet occasional sightings persisted. Writer Ishtiaque Hasan recorded that around 1980–82, a Marma man saw a large tiger rolling lazily on a hillside near Remakri.

Between 1985 and 1989, Khagrachhari resident Mathura Bikash Tripura wrote about a tiger that had been terrorising villages. Eventually, locals discovered its decomposing body in a pit — poisoned after eating a tainted cow it had killed.

What happened next

Roughly 29% of Bangladesh's total forest area lies within the CHT. Hutchinson, in 'An Account of the Chittagong Hill Tracts', noted that 1383 square miles of this region were reserved forest, most of it dense, impenetrable jungle.

Large parts are designated as Unclassed State Forest (USF), and many remain inaccessible even to the Forest Department due to security concerns and decades of armed insurgency. Civilian access is still restricted in many areas of Khagrachhari and Rangamati, including the Kasalong Reserve Forest, according to a TBS article in 2023.

In June 2023, the wildlife organisation Creative Conservation Alliance (CCA) confirmed a leopard sighting in a remote reserve forest of the Hill Tracts through camera-trap footage. This has reignited debate over whether the Royal Bengal Tiger might still exist there.

Tigers are known to stay close to their prey and avoid disturbed areas. Yet in dense, untouched forests, their presence cannot be ruled out. Researchers believe that a small number may still survive, most likely within the Kasalong Reserve Forest in the Northern Forest Division, which spans 393,840 acres.

This forest borders India's Mizoram and Tripura states, and wildlife experts suggest that tigers from the Dampa Tiger Reserve in Mizoram occasionally cross into Bangladesh before returning.

There are scattered records supporting this possibility. Tigers were reportedly killed in Kasalong in 2003 and near Remakri around 2006–07. Locals claimed to have seen a live tiger in Raikhong in 2009. In 2016, a conservation team discovered a 13 cm paw print in the Sangu Reserve Forest in Bandarban, believed to belong to a tiger. Further sightings were reported in Alikadam (2020) and northern Kasalong (2021).

In March 2025, a group of Jhum farmers reported seeing a tiger in a forest (its name withheld for conservation reasons). Just weeks earlier, a cow had been killed nearby, believed to be the work of the same animal, according to Prothom Alo.

Mystery remains

The Southern Forest Division of the Hill Tracts, covering five upazilas, has reported no recent tiger movement. 

According to Divisional Forest Officer SM Sajjad Hossain, although sightings are occasionally reported in the north, nothing has been confirmed within his jurisdiction. 

He did, however, hear of a recent incident in Jurachhari upazila, where a man claimed a tiger bit his ear before others intervened. Without photographic or forensic evidence, Hossain remains cautious about confirming the animal's identity.

So, do tigers still roam the forests of CHT? For now, the question remains unanswered.