Sundarbans West Wildlife Sanctuary is a

UNESCO World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

and

animal sanctuary An animal sanctuary is a facility where animals are brought to live and to be protected for the rest of their lives. Pattrice Jones, co-founder of VINE Sanctuary defines an animal sanctuary as "a safe-enough place or relationship within the cont ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

. The area of the reserve covers 715 km². It is part of the larger Sundarbans region, one of the largest

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evoluti ...

forests in the world. It is formed at the unified

delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * D ( NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta") * Delta Air Lines, US * Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 Delta may also ...

of the

Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...

Brahmaputra The Brahmaputra is a trans-boundary river which flows through Tibet, northeast India, and Bangladesh. It is also known as the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibetan, the Siang/Dihang River in Arunachali, Luit in Assamese, and Jamuna River in Bangla. It ...

and

Meghna The Meghna River ( bn, মেঘনা নদী) is one of the major rivers in Bangladesh, one of the three that form the Ganges Delta, the largest delta on earth, which fans out to the Bay of Bengal. A part of the Surma-Meghna River System, ...

rivers on the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line between ...

. The total area of the entire Sundarbans is about one million ha, 60% of which is found in Bangladesh, with the remainder 40% in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. The region is divided by the

Raimangal River Raimangal River ( bn, রায়মঙ্গল নদী) is a tidal estuarine river in and around the Sundarbans in South 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal and Satkhira District in Bangladesh. The Ichamati breaks up i ...

. Within the Bangladeshi area of Sundarbans, there are three wildlife sanctuaries: Sundarbans East, Sundarbans South, and Sundarbans West.

Environment

The region is intersected by a complex network of tidal waterways, mud flats and small islands of salt tolerant mangrove forests. The area is flooded with

brackish water Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estua ...

during high tides which mix with freshwater from inland rivers.

Flora

The region supports several mangroves, including: sparse stands of gewa (''Excoecaria agallocha'') and dense stands of goran (''Ceriops tagal''), with discontinuous patches of hantal palm (''Phoenix paludosa'') on drier ground, river banks and levees.

Fauna

The fauna of the sanctuary is very diverse with some 40 species of mammals, 260 species of birds and 35 species of reptiles. The greatest of these being the

Bengal tiger The Bengal tiger is a population of the ''Panthera tigris tigris'' subspecies. It ranks among the biggest wild cats alive today. It is considered to belong to the world's charismatic megafauna. The tiger is estimated to have been present in ...

of which an estimated 350 remain in the Bangladesh Sundarbans. Other large mammals are

wild boar The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The species is ...

, chital horin (spotted deer),

smooth-coated otter The smooth-coated otter (''Lutrogale perspicillata'') is an otter species occurring in most of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, with a disjunct population in Iraq. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1996 and is thre ...

and

macaque monkey The macaques () constitute a genus (''Macaca'') of gregarious Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. The 23 species of macaques inhabit ranges throughout Asia, North Africa, and (in one instance) Gibraltar. Macaques are principall ...

. Five species of marine turtles frequent the coastal zone and two endangered reptiles are present - the

estuarine crocodile The saltwater crocodile (''Crocodylus porosus'') is a crocodilian native to saltwater habitats and brackish wetlands from India's east coast across Southeast Asia and the Sundaic region to northern Australia and Micronesia. It has been liste ...

and the

Indian python The Indian python (''Python molurus'') is a large python species native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It is also known by the common names black-tailed python, Indian rock python, and Asian r ...

.UNESCO World Heritage Nomination, 1997

References

Sundarbans Wildlife sanctuaries of Bangladesh Forests of Bangladesh Khulna Division Protected areas with year of establishment missing {{Khulna-geo-stub