 Image caption Bengal tiger populations in Bangladesh have slumped 
 
 Six suspected tiger poachers have been shot dead in a gunfight with Bangladeshi police at a hideout in the world's largest mangrove forest. Police seized three tiger pelts which they said were from animals that appeared to be freshly killed. Experts say the dramatic slump is down to more accurate surveying methods, but also to rampant poaching. Image caption The Sundarbans are made up of 10,000 sq km of forest straddling India and Bangladesh 
 
 But some local media cast doubt on the police's version of events, saying the suspects had been arrested before being shot dead.
– Six suspected tiger poachers in Bangladesh aren't going to make it to trial: Officials tell the BBC that the gang members were killed in a shootout after opening fire on police, and officers found the skins of three endangered Bengal tigers that had been killed just days earlier. The men were killed at their hideout in the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest, where there has been a huge fall in tiger numbers, the AP reports. A recent survey found only around 100 tigers where 440 tigers were recorded in 2004. Some of the drop is believed to be due to different survey methods, though authorities say rampant poaching is also to blame. (In Nepal, tiger numbers are rising amid a "zero-tolerance attitude to wildlife crime.)