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Do women bear the brunt of saltwater crocodile attacks in the Sundarbans (divided between India and Bangladesh), the world’s largest mangrove forest and an UNESCO World Heritage Site? Recent research certainly hints at the possibility.
According to a study published in 2017 in the Cambridge University Press and conducted in the Indian section of the Sundarbans, almost 80 per cent of the victims of human-crocodile conflicts were collectors of prawn seedlings (known as meen in Bangla), and that 61.16 per cent of the victims died as a result of the attacks.
The study, Human–crocodile conflict in the Indian Sundarbans: an analysis of spatio-temporal incidences in relation to people’s livelihood, shows that female victims accounted for a higher percentage of deaths (55.12 per cent) than male victims (44.88 per cent).
The attacks occur when the locals collect meen. The study adds that human–crocodile conflicts have increased since 1990, mainly as a “result of large-scale human encroachment into the crocodile's territories”. Despite the threat, just like the tiger, the crocodile also remains deeply embedded in the Sundarbans’ natural as well as cultural landscape.
Saltwater crocodiles (Lonapanir kumir in Bangla) have always been an integral part of the Sundarbans. In the Sundarbans’ mangrove habitat, tides often erase the boundaries between villages and wildlife habitats, often embedding these predators in the ecosystem and culture as fragile-balance guardians.
The species features in the folk tale of local deity Bonbibi (‘Lady of the Forest’) and Dakshin Rai (‘Lord of the South’).
Bonbibi, the forest goddess, is believed to guard against tigers and other threats, before venturing inside forests of the Sundarbans. In her story, when the boy Dukhey got lost in the forest, Bonbibi summoned Kalu Rai the crocodile, and placed the boy on its back, so that he could safely return home. To this day, many fishermen invoke the protection of Kalu Rai from crocodile attacks.
However, escalating human-wildlife conflict has increasingly pitted fishers against saltwater crocodiles in a fight for vanishing space and food.
Saltie behaviour is heavily influenced by environmental factors like tides and temperature which are dominant in the Sundarbans. The reptiles bask in the sun to thermoregulate and are most visible during low tides, when they patrol mudflats and channels, lying still to ambush prey.
The state forest department’s 2025 survey reveals a rise in the saltwater crocodile populations across all demographic classes in the Sundarbans Biosphere Reserve (SBR), with a particularly encouraging increase in rare hatchling sightings, amid the challenging terrain.
The estimated population of saltwater crocodiles at SBR has been found to be between a maximum of 242 and a minimum of 220 this year, with 213 direct sightings recorded during the study last done in 2025.
Justin Jones, the deputy field director of SBR, informed that at present a census estimation to count crocodiles is on. “The population estimation is generally done in the winter season from December till February annually.”
Even as saltie numbers increase in the Sundarbans, attacks on humans are on the rise. Frontline workers in South 24 Parganas’ Gosaba, Basanti, and Patharpratima, all within around 100 km from Kolkata, report attacks.
The study mentioned above collected data on 127 such crocodile attacks that occurred between 2000 and 2013. Gosaba, a small island in the Sundarbans, is the most impacted.
The brunt of these attacks is borne by women collecting meen.
The human residents of the Sundarbans are extremely poor and grow crops, collect honey, cut wood, catch fish and collect meen for a living. Economic necessity forces women to collect meen. They are forced to do this even during their periods. The scent of menstrual blood reportedly attracts crocodiles, adding a terrifying risk to an already arduous task.
Crocodile expert Jailabdeen A, the director of the Gharial Ecology Project, is researching on and conserving gharials in the Chambal landscape of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. He said saltwater crocodiles have highly developed olfactory sense and can smell blood.
Every instance of crocodile attacks in the Sundarbans reveals the extent of the danger women undertake when they wade into the turbid water to collect meen, even during their periods.
As first reported by The Telegraph India, in October 2025, 37-year-old homemaker Pranati Pramanik battled a saltwater crocodile for 30 minutes while crab fishing near Bonshyamnagar in the Sundarbans, escaping with injuries by gripping a tree.
Unsurprisingly, many women in the Sundarbans have begun to abandon the practice of collecting meen, by switching to other livelihoods.
“Most of the meen used to get smuggled illegally to Bangladesh, but now its price has tanked because sales have dried up. So, many women have switched to catching crabs instead or are doing something else,” said local resident Chhittaranjan Ray, who lives in Gosaba. Ray recalled how, back in the day in Dayapur, a Sundarbans village, six to seven women lost their lives to crocodile attacks.
Kaushalya Sardar informed that she used to collect meen once upon a time but left due to the threat of crocodile attacks.
“I left collecting meen around two years back. Still, as I am a poor woman, I work in the paddy fields during harvest and look for other jobs as well. My husband does the same in Andhra Pradesh. Many women left after the attacks happened.” She lives in Birajmani under the Gosaba Police station limits. Sardar added that if a woman caught 1,000 meen pieces daily, she got around Rs 150-Rs 200. “Traders used to come, count and pay us.”
Kanailal Sarkar who works in the Kolkata-based non-profit Tagore Society for Rural Development noted that sharks also pose a threat alongside crocodiles. Probir Mahapatra, who heads the non-profit, added that the crocodilian activity may have increased due to the rise in sea salinity.
Sarkar informed that tourists spot many crocodiles either in the waters or basking on the banks. The Bhagabatpur crocodile project, a conservation breeding facility, was started in 1976 to revive the population of crocodiles in the Sundarbans.
Researcher Ujjwal Sardar, from the Rajshahi University’s folklore department, informed that rising sea salinity in the Sundarbans is driving crocodiles into villages and even village ponds. The intrusion of saltwater, exacerbated after cyclones Aila in 2009 and Amphan in 2020, has killed off some mangrove species and rendered farmlands unusable for many locals.
Sardar, a Baruipur resident about 50 km from the Sundarbans, is studying folk technologies on both sides of the mangrove forest. He noted that while riverside villages once suffered frequent shark attacks, no such incidents had been recorded in the past several years. He also highlighted cases of women who had survived crocodile attacks. “The meen collection disrupts the ecological balance. As collectors use nets to catch the seedlings, they end up killing other vital aquatic fish species.”
Jailabdeen added that it is not just menstruating women who are victims. “Any kind of activity can be sensed by them (crocodiles). So, even non-menstruating women can be attacked.”
Other than crocodile attacks, women in the Sundarbans collecting meen may also suffer from cervical cancer because they rely on unhygienic cloth pads, informed Sumanta Biswas, a teacher who raises awareness about safe menstruation and distributes pads to women in need.
“Initially, they develop the pelvic inflammatory disease or PID, which can lead to cervical cancer. Most women cannot afford pads due to poverty. Cloth pads aren’t washed and dried properly, often leading to infections,” Biswas said. One in every five women globally suffering from cervical cancer is from India.
He had been several times to the Sundarbans and found out that shame around periods still persists in the region. Biswas noted that even in this day and age, social taboos related to menstruation still prevail in the Sundarbans. Sometimes, women are prevented from boarding boats when they bleed. At times, the boats are returned and washed.