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Crabbers in Sundarbans

Pinaki Roy
It was already late afternoon in narrow Keorashuti canal lined with dense forests on both banks as Shushil was pulling the oars as fast as possible because he wanted to reach the Hiron Point office of the forest department to spend the night there before it gets dark.
" Hey, how was the catch today?" a tourist who was traveling on the boat with this correspondent asked Shushil as they approached Keorashuti watchtower. "Not bad," Shushil replied. "What do you catch, shrimps?" the curious tourist wants to know more. "No. Crabs." Shushil said, and soon he was trying to sell some of his day's catch to the tourists, bringing them out of the hull tank where he keeps
Among thousands of residents of the Sundarbans area Shushil is one of those whose livelihood depends largely on the forest. Following deadly Cyclone Sidr
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most of the residents of the area are refraining from going into the forest as the forest authorities decided not to permit people to enter the Sundarbans in search of livelihoods for now.
During the visit to the Sundarbans, this correspondent only found some crabbers trying to earn their living in the forest.
Talking to them, he found out that a few hundred crabbers like Shushil catch crabs in different rivers and canals of the Sundarbans braving the chances of falling preys to tigers and crocodiles. Live crabs arc a popular delicacy in different countries includingThailand, Korea, Malaysia, and in Europe.
Shushil came to Nilkamal area of Hiron Point from Patharghata to catch crabs. Generally two persons catch crabs together on a boat, but this time Shushil came alone.
When asked, how they catch crabs, he said "We use eels as baits." They cut an eel into pieces and put the pieces on hooks. The hooks are then tied to a line and dropped to the bottom of the canal.
"When crabs see the piece of eel they bite it and we pull them out of the water and tie their legs," Shushil said with a smile
"In 30 minutes we can catch seven to eight crabs," he said before he left hurriedly for the forest depart -ment office at Hiron Point to spend the night, he had to reach there before dark.
"Catching crab on small boats in the narrow canal is really risky. Any time they might be attacked by tigers," said one of the forest guards who were accompanying this correspondent.
When crabbers go to the forest, they know they might not return home as many of them lose their lives to tigers, he added.
"My brother-in-law Krishna was killed by tigers a few years ago," said Ripon Mondol, another crabber who was spending the night at Katka forest office.
In the first week of November a few hundred crabbers go into the forest for three months to catch crabs. Some of them never return due to attacks by tigers, said another crabber whose boat was also anchored by Katka forest office
"How many crabs you can catch a day?" asked oneof the visitors.
"About a hundred," said Ripon Mondol who came from Morelganj of Bagerhat. He said they go back to wholesale markets at Morelganj every seven to eight days into their expedition to sell their catches.
"We go back to sell when we catch five to seven hundred crabs." said Ripon adding that they sell that number of crabs for Tk 3000 to Tk 10,000, depending on the size of them.
During the rest of the year they catch fish, work in agriculture, or work as day labourers, the crabbers ofSundar bans said.