In this episode of WildCats Pawcast, we ask: Can tigers be climate refugees too?

We head to the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest and one of the most climate-vulnerable places on Earth, to explore how a warming world is reshaping life for both Bengal tigers and the people who live alongside them.

We are joined first by Dr Sharif Mukul, Associate Professor of Environment and Development at United International University, Bangladesh. Dr Mukul explains his landmark study on how sea-level rise and rising temperatures could wipe out suitable tiger habitat in the Bangladesh Sundarbans by 2070, why key threats like salinity, sediment change and unplanned tourism may make things even worse, and why protecting the Sundarbans is not only about saving tigers, but about safeguarding one of our most important natural climate solutions.

Then we speak with researcher Amrita DasGupta (University of London), whose work focuses on climate, migration and gender in Indian Ocean deltas. Amrita shares powerful insights from time spent in the Sundarbans, showing how climate change is driving people deeper into tiger territory, escalating human–tiger conflict, and disproportionately harming women through stigma, superstition, exploitation and displacement.

Together, they reveal a stark reality: in the Sundarbans, some of the world's poorest communities, and the tigers they live beside, are already being pushed to move by a crisis they did little to cause, raising urgent questions about justice, responsibility and what it will take for both people and tigers to have a future there.