- The bay cat, named for its brownish-red coat, is arguably probably the most elusive of all of the world’s wildcats. And among the many most endangered.
- The bay cat is the one feline endemic to Borneo. Researchers — a few of whom have by no means seen the cat within the wild — say it’s probably threatened by habitat loss and killings by locals, with unintentional snaring one other attainable main reason for loss.
- But the most important menace could also be ignorance. In order to raised defend this species, researchers urgently want to determine: Why is it so uncommon? And why is it vanishing?
- Jim Sanderson, the world’s main professional on wildcats, suggests analysis on the bay cat ought to concentrate on why it’s so unusual, what’s inflicting its decline, and learn how to scale back these threats. Then conservationists could make a viable plan to guard it.
There is {a photograph} of the bay cat I can’t get out of my head. In it, the cat appears intensely proper on the viewer, its sun-yellow eyes sporting two darkish traces working up from them as if somebody had utilized make-up. In the combination of sunshine and shade, its coat passes from brown to orange to blood pink. Its lengthy tail is tipped in white. The animal is in a dingy cage, suffering from lifeless rats, however that doesn’t detract a bit from the cat’s majesty and strangeness.
Jim Sanderson, the world’s main professional on small wildcats, took the photograph in 2008. The cat, which had beforehand been stored in a cage in a gasoline station, was being held in a personal menagerie in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo.
Sanderson, who based the Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation, says the cat’s proprietor “knew what he had.” And what he had was arguably the world’s most elusive wildcat — and among the many most endangered. A couple of days later, the cat was gone — doubtless bought for a pile of money into the unlawful wildlife commerce. Its finish was most likely ignominious.
The Borneo bay cat (Catopuma badia) is so uncommon, elusive and unusual that after its discovery, it vanished from science for greater than 60 years. Today, the bay cat stays stubbornly troublesome to even discover, no much less analysis or preserve.
It makes the snow leopard look conspicuous.
What we all know, and what we don’t
“The bay cat is a black hole, and we don’t even know how to start to study the species, it is so elusive,” says Oliver Wearn, a biologist and conservation marketing consultant. “They are about as elusive as any mammal can be.”
There are some things we do know. C. badia is the one feline endemic to Borneo, and its look is distinctive, making it simple to inform other than the opposite 4 cat species dwelling there as a consequence of its “bay” (reddish-brown) coloring — although there are different coloration variants — and as a consequence of its super-long tail.
Sebastian Kennerknecht, photographer and founding father of Cat Expeditions, a worldwide cat tourism group, notes that the bay cat “kind of looks like a mini puma but isn’t even in the same genus.” The animal is most carefully associated to the Asian golden cat (Catopuma temminckii), however these two felines doubtless advanced down completely different paths greater than 3 million years in the past.
Oh, and we all know it lives within the forest.
And that’s about it. We don’t know any conduct fundamentals: the ecological area of interest it fills, what sort of forest it prefers, what it eats, whether or not it’s an arboreal cat or floor hunter, how a lot territory it wants or how the species mates and rears young.
The greatest thriller, and the one holding up conservation efforts: Why is that this cat so frustratingly uncommon?
To date, Sanderson’s 2008 images of that male feline stay among the finest on the earth. And in the future, if the worst occurs, that photograph could also be one in all few data of a never-known feline.
‘It does exist’
Despite years doing area analysis, biologist Susan Cheyne has by no means seen a bay cat. There’s even “some speculation that it doesn’t exist,” she says. Cheyne is the co-founder and director of analysis at Borneo Nature Foundation International (BNF), which works in Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo.
Kennerknecht, who’s led excursions in Borneo, has seen the entire island’s elusive cat species within the wild — besides the bay cat. “Even most of the super-serious cat chasers out there have not yet seen this species,” he says.
When I ask Cheyne if she knew anybody who’d ever seen it within the wild, she says, “No,” however then provides emphatically, “It does exist.”
Alfred Russel Wallace, famed biologist and the second father of evolution, was the primary scientist to come back throughout the bay cat, sending a pores and skin and cranium again to the U.Okay. in 1856. Scientists collected 5 extra specimens over the following few a long time, however after 1928, the bay cat vanished.
“There have been a few rumors of the cat’s continued existence, some unsuccessful searches, and the occasional unconfirmed sighting,” reads a 1993 paper in Oryx.
That modified on Nov. 4, 1992, when an almost lifeless feminine bay cat was delivered to the Natural History Museum in Sarawak. Indigenous folks had trapped and stored the cat for a number of months.
“The specimen was about the size of a domestic cat with an extremely long tail. It weighed 1.95 kg [4.29 lbs], but was in a thoroughly emaciated condition with wasted muscles and protruding bones,” in line with the Oryx paper, asserting the invention.
Charles Leh, then curator of the museum, preserved the specimen. Its pitiful captivity and loss of life had finished one factor: It confirmed the species hadn’t gone extinct within the prior 64 years.
So, how do we all know it nonetheless exists? Because researchers and conservationists like Cheyne and Wearn proceed to seize fleeting bay cat pictures on digicam traps, albeit not often — actually not often. Collectively, researchers have recorded it lower than 100 instances, in line with Wai-Ming Wong, the director of small cat conservation science on the cat NGO Panthera, one of many few teams engaged on the bay cat.
And these appearances have been devilishly sporadic. BNF, for instance, spent 16 years digicam trapping in Sabangau National Park, simply catching all 4 different Borneo cat species on digicam, in “good numbers,” says Cheyne — however no bay cat. Although, the researchers have recorded the cat in 5 different protected areas in Indonesian Borneo.
Wearn and colleagues, utilizing digicam lure information obtained within the Kalabakan Forest Reserve in Sabah, tried to evaluate bay cat inhabitants density, estimating about three bay cats per 100 sq. kilometers (38.6 sq. miles) — a smaller quantity than for clouded leopards described in a 2022 paper printed in Methods in Ecology and Evolution. They additionally discovered bay cats to be the quickest cats in Borneo, shifting at a dizzying pace of 1.2 kilometers (0.75 miles) per hour versus the following quickest, the far bigger clouded leopard, at 0.9 kilometers (0.56 miles) per hour.
“The low density and fast movement speed implies that the bay cat might have a very large home range, perhaps in excess of the clouded leopard,” says Wearn, noting that his colleagues not often photographed the identical bay cat twice — true for each researcher I converse to for this story. “Alternatively, the bay cat might occur very patchily, due to very specific habitat or diet requirements. We really don’t know at this point.”
Wearn notes these density statistics are “informed guesstimates” based mostly on digicam lure information and on assumptions a few medium-sized cat. “The 2022 study was the first time anyone has been able to estimate the density of a whole community of animals [including species beyond the bay cat] from camera traps,” he says of the paper.
Not everybody has sufficient encounters to even try density estimates.
“We have never really, in any single place, got enough photographs to actually get any kind of decent density estimate,” says Cheyne of the parks in Kalimantan, noting that 5 or 6 images had been probably the most they ever obtained from a specific website.
Habitat loss results in decline
Whatever the density, scientists say they imagine the bay cat inhabitants is in decline, as with many different mammals in Borneo. Humans have destroyed about half of Borneo’s forests for the reason that Seventies. So, logically, a forest-dependent species just like the bay cat would have most likely seen a dramatic drop in numbers in recent a long time.
The IUCN Red List, which categorizes the bay cat as endangered, estimates its potential space of occupation doubtless shrank by a 3rd by 2010. IUCN additionally estimates that there’s fewer than 2,500 bay cats left — and that was in 2016.
It additionally appears doubtless bay cats aren’t present in peat forests, which, if confirmed, guidelines out an unlimited portion of the island’s habitat. The species additionally has by no means been recorded in an oil palm plantation, which implies it might undergo from an absence of connectivity throughout Borneo.
“Bay cats need vast areas of connected and relatively intact habitat to survive. … Roads, oil palm plantations and infrastructure development are major constraints on this,” says Wearn.
The one vibrant spot? Scientists have recorded the bay cat in secondary forest, which implies it might be able to maintain on in some locations disturbed by people.
The cats have gotten more durable to seek out in some locales. For instance, Wong says his colleagues did not {photograph} a bay cat within the Deramakot Forest Reserve in Sabah throughout their most recent spherical of digicam trapping. This is worrying as a result of Panthera has been digicam trapping there since 2014, and its scientists’ sighting of bay cats prompted them to imagine the realm was a “potential stronghold” for the species.
But Wong says he’s not but “alarmed,” given how onerous the animals are to {photograph}.
Besides habitat loss, the bay cat can be probably threatened by searching, with folks killing it for meals or as a consequence of a perceived sense that it might prey on native livestock, particularly chickens. Killing of its prey (no matter that could be) is also impacting the cat. Andrew Hearn, a biologist with WildCRU, says he’s additionally gravely involved that snaring — widespread throughout Borneo — may very well be a “significant threat,” sharing an anecdote of an area hunter having unintentionally snared a cat earlier than letting it go. Given its low inhabitants density, any killing by folks may very well be devastating for bay cat survival.
Conservation — however how?
While organizations are actively engaged on small cat analysis — such because the Small Wild Cat Conservation Foundation, Panthera and Re:wild — no group at present has a analysis or conservation effort particularly targeted on the bay cat.
But how do you preserve a species about which so little is thought? That query plagues any researcher working tangentially on the bay cat at this time.
To preserve the animals, “We need to know where they are and what they need to survive. We aren’t doing a good job at these two most basic questions,” says Wearn, who suggests conservationists want to find out a “suitable study site to do some in-depth research on the species.”
He additionally suggests trapping an animal and radio collaring it, “assuming the significant ethical risks of this are judged to be worth it.” This is one thing conservationists did with the Amazon Rainforest’s short-eared canine, shedding new gentle on this super-rare predator.
Cheyne says scientists additionally want to succeed in out to native communities for extra info. “I’m sure there’s a whole load of local knowledge out there: historical local knowledge about these cats that just hasn’t been tapped into.” She provides that it might be helpful to hunt out tales, myths or legends surrounding the species.
Wong suggests larger-scale digicam lure surveys would possibly shed a brighter gentle on the species. He additionally thinks eDNA could also be an choice, however hurdles await anybody pursuing that route resembling the issue of understanding the place the cats could also be and the rapidity with which natural materials breaks down within the tropical atmosphere.
However, to perform any of this, conservation teams would wish the funding and assets to focus completely on the bay cat. Some money for that would come quickly, since small wildcats obtained a big funding boost in 2021 when the Ayers Wild Cat Conservation Trust pledged hundreds of thousands for small wildcats.
Still, Panthera’s Small Cats Program has the identical complete stage of funding for all 33 small- to medium-sized cats as simply one in all its applications for a giant cat, together with the puma, which is of least concern (Puma concolor). This displays the straightforward proven fact that massive cats are much more in style with donors and the general public — and thus obtain rather more funding — than small and medium-sized cats. While some teams are funding work on small cats, due partly to the efforts of Jim Sanderson, most giant conservation NGOs nonetheless aren’t.
Bay cats “are quite hard to fundraise for … because they’re so rare, [and] it’s difficult to get results,” explains Wong. What if, for instance, Panthera raised a giant pot of money to review bay cats, set out 100 camara traps and didn’t get a single photograph? “With a super-rare species, a donor will give me money. … [But] what will I have to show for that?”
To a scientist, not discovering a cat continues to be helpful, Wong notes, because it guidelines out the place the animal isn’t. But by way of funding, a crapshoot for a species most individuals have by no means heard of is a tough promote.
When it come to the bay cat, Sanderson says, conservation motion isn’t unattainable. The massive barrier is our ignorance regarding what’s threatening the animal.
“No one can tell me specifically what the threats are,” Sanderson says. “Is it bushmeat hunting? We have solutions working in Africa for the African golden cat. Is it habitat loss? I don’t think so because the bay cat is found in degraded forest. Is the threat retaliatory killing for stealing chickens? We have solved this problem many times over — a hammer and chicken wire.”
Sanderson says the main focus needs to be on one major query: Why is that this cat vanishing? Then put money towards fixing the issue. “I am not saying [basic] research is unnecessary,” Sanderson provides. “I’m saying let conservation needs — like threat assessment — motivate research questions. The answers will be immediately useful.”
Close contact
In 2003, biologist Andrew Hearn headed to Borneo for his first area work conducting orangutan surveys in Kalimantan with native researchers. At the beginning, he and his colleagues discovered some boaters and persuaded them to take the workforce upriver deep into the forest.
But Hearn rapidly found the boaters had their very own agenda: They “began loading the largest chainsaws I had ever seen onto the boat,” at which level the researchers realized they had been touring with unlawful loggers. But making the very best of a poor scenario, the workforce sailed upstream, and whereas the loggers lower bushes, the scientists counted orangutans.
And then it occurred.
“One morning, before breakfast, I walked a few meters from camp to sit and take in the air… when a small red cat walked out in front of me,” remembers Hearn, who at this time is a clouded leopard researcher at WildCRU. “I quickly sketched it before it sauntered off, and I returned to chat with my new logger friends about this strange red cat, which, at the time, I was unsure if it was domestic or wild! The head of the gang causally replied, ‘Yes, it’s kucing merah,’ the red cat.”
Weeks later, Hearn took his drawing to Jim Sanderson. “He looked at me and said, ‘That’s the bay cat, Andy.’” The encounter led Hearn to focus his life’s work on Asia’s wildcats. Of all of the researchers I discuss to in regards to the bay cat, Hearn is the one one who has seen a dwell, wild bay cat in person.
And he’s by no means seen one since.
Banner picture: Photo of the captive bay cat in 2008. These pictures of the captive animal stay among the finest close-ups of the bay cat ever taken. Image by Jim Sanderson.
Extremely uncommon bay cat filmed in Borneo
Citations:
Sunquist M, Leh C, Hills DM, Rajaratnam R. Rediscovery of the Bornean bay cat. Oryx. 1994;28(1):67-70. doi:10.1017/S0030605300028313
Wearn, O. R., Bell, T. E. M., Bolitho, A., Durrant, J., Haysom, J. Okay., Nijhawan, S., Thorley, J., & Rowcliffe, J. M. (2022). Estimating animal density for a group of species utilizing info obtained solely from camera-traps. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 13, 2248–2261. doi:10.1111/2041-210X.13930
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