Mountfort in Sundarban

Black-top Kingfisher. Photo: Ihtisham Kabir

Guy Mountfort (1905-2003) was an influential English conservationist. He was a founder of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and co-wrote the best-selling A Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe. 

In 1968 he and his team visited Sundarban in Bangladesh as part of a series of trips to wilderness areas of erstwhile Pakistan. I recently found his account on Sundarban, published in his book The Vanishing Jungle.

I read it eagerly. Did a foreigner - one who had seen beautiful places around the world - find our Sundarban as stunning and compelling as my friends and I do? More importantly, did he see things that we have lost today? How has the forest changed in fifty years?

Mountfort made me smile even before he got to Sundarban. His Jeep was driven from Jessore to Khulna by a driver who we immediately recognize in today's roads, taking a “fiendish delight in risking our lives.” Luckily he made it safely.

My overall reaction after reading his account: the Sundarban I know and love is very much like what he saw fifty years ago. And I hope we can keep it that way.

The group started its boat journey from Khulna to Sundarban that night and, come morning, beheld Sundarban for the first time. “The scene which greeted us next morning had a strange beauty quite unlike anything we had seen before....” Yes, that is Sundarban!

In his description of Sundarban's birds Mountfort singles out Kingfishers for praise, saying that in all his global wanderings he had never seen so many species of Kingfishers in one place. Of the nine Kingfisher species found in Sundarban, he sees five in an hour's boat journey. Do we see five Kingfisher species in an hour's boat ride in Sundarban today? I can probably see four in winter: Black-capped, Brown-winged, Common and White-throated (and occasionally the Collared Kingfisher.) For Mountfort, the most beautiful is the Black-capped Kingfisher “with an unbelievably glittering violet and white body, a black cap and bright orange beneath its wings.” I agree: this bird is incredible. He sees several Stork-billed Kingfishers in Sundarban, whereas I never saw any there. On the other hand he missed the “jewel-like” Blue-eared Kingfisher, which I saw in Sundarban thanks to my friend Dr. Niaz's eagle eyes.

Curiously there is no mention of Masked Finfoot, the most sought-after bird of Sundarban.

Mountfort mentions the extirpation of two animals from Sundarban: the Gaur (Bison) and Barasingha (Axis Deer). But he did see the Mugger Crocodile (Marsh Crocodile), which, since then, has been wiped out from Sundarban. We still have the Estuarine Crocodile.

Mountfort quotes government officials claiming around three hundred Tigers in Sundarban. Based on his research, he concluded this number was far too optimistic and estimated the number of Tigers in Sundarban to be between fifty and hundred. He mentions submitting a plan for Sundarban that included re-introducing Barasingha to feed an increased Tiger population.

Subsequently Mountfort was instrumental in the revival of Tiger population in India, where he had the ear of Indira Gandhi.

Mountfort's team went all out to photograph Tigers during the trip. They spent most of three nights in machans (at three different locations) while offering a sheep as bait. But no Tiger was seen.

In my many trips to Sundarban, the only disappointment is the lack of a Tiger sighting. Now I don't feel so bad.

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