Saving Asia’s fishing cat means defending threatened wetland habitat

Many cats despise mud and water, however not so the fishing cat. This enigmatic medium-sized cat species roams South and Southeast Asia and is uniquely tailored to life in wetlands — a lot in order that its name resembles the quack of a duck.

Little identified and underresearched, it faces an uphill battle towards a number of threats, together with lack of its wetland habitat to humanity’s incursions, and escalating local weather change, as excessive drought and rising coastal waters disrupt aquatic ecosystems.

Though in peril, the fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) has many champions combating for its survival. A pioneer of that effort is Tiasa Adhya, co-founder of the Fishing Cat Project in India, the world’s first and longest-running conservation and analysis program devoted to the species.

Her journey to researching and turning into a voice for P. viverrinus started on a tiger survey within the Sundarbans of West Bengal, India, in 2010. “There was this miniature pugmark — [a footprint] like that of a small tiger — that the forest department ranger pointed me to,” she recounts. “They said it belonged to the fishing cat. It was the state animal of West Bengal. But I had no idea what a fishing cat was, and that was true for most people [living] in my state.”

Adhya went on to co-found the Fishing Cat Project that very same 12 months. Over time, the group’s relentless awareness-raising efforts, group outreach, and authorities lobbying boosted the fishing cat’s visibility, she says. In 2022, she acquired the Future for Nature Award, in recognition of her work with fishing cats.

Fast-forward to right this moment and quite a few initiatives devoted to defending the species have sprung up throughout the cat’s vary nations, from Pakistan to Bangladesh, Cambodia to Thailand. Each 12 months, conservationists rejoice Fishing Cat February, shining a lightweight on this once-neglected felid.

A well-adapted and adaptable cat

Alongside Asia’s flat-headed cat (Prionailurus planiceps), the fishing cat is particularly tailored to dwelling and looking in semiaquatic habitats: in marshes, alongside rivers and oxbow lakes, in reeds and mangroves. The young begin taking part in in water inside two months of start.

The principally nocturnal fishing cat, about twice the scale of a home cat, boasts a shiny yellowish-gray double-layered coat, which affords a water barrier and insulation when it plunges to catch fish; its paws are barely webbed, whereas its ears shut shut when its nostril is submerged in shallow water.

“That’s a marvelous adaptation! That tells us how nature has cherry-picked these traits for the fishing cat’s survival as a wetland species,” says Adhya. Despite its identify, this principally nocturnal felid eats way over fish; it dines on a varied diet of rodents, birds, snakes, frogs, crustaceans and mollusks.

Thanks to researchers and conservationists, usually working with shoestring budgets, comparatively extra is understood about fishing cats in comparison with another small wildcat species. But vital and generally evident information gaps stay, Adhya says.

In Cambodia, for example, fishing cats had been regarded as extinct till 2015; right this moment, digital camera traps proceed shining a lightweight on new populations there. “We now have the confirmation of fishing cats in at least three sites in very different areas,” says Vanessa Herranz Muñoz, of the Cambodian Fishing Cat Project.

Population estimates are scant in different areas too, usually sophisticated by the moist, difficult-to-traverse habitat during which these cats dwell. The IUCN lists the fishing cat as vulnerable, with world estimates of less than 10,000 individuals as of 2010 in a minimum of eight Asian nations.

Earlier this 12 months, researchers in Bangladesh snapped footage of fishing cats scaling 8-meter (26-foot) timber to plunder chook nests. This never-before-witnessed tree-topping conduct underlines how a lot stays to be realized about this mysterious species.

Experts do know that fishing cats are adaptable, even capable of habituate themselves to degraded lands and human-dominated landscapes, although solely to an extent. Conservationists in Sri Lanka are tracking fishing cats that dwell within the nation’s densely populated capital of Colombo, the place they generally fish within the backyard koi ponds of the town’s residents.

Though this adaptability is doubtlessly optimistic for the cat’s survival, dwelling in shut proximity to folks brings with it many risks. This has led researchers to warn that city habitat might represent an “ecological trap” for P. viverrinus, exposing it to threats resembling illness threat and conflicts with people.

“Even though we say that the cat is adaptable, I don’t want to say that the cat can thrive in human-dominated landscapes or in cities,” says Ashan Thudugala, co-founder of Sri Lankan NGO Small Cat Advocacy and Research, including that’s possible the final possibility for the fishing cat.

Nature’s wetland ambassador beneath strain

Across their vary, fishing cats face a number of challenges. These embody the danger of turning into roadkill, of illness transmitted by home animals, of local weather change, and even of plastic air pollution. Those threats get larger for any populations dwelling outdoors protected areas. Persecution on account of human-wildlife battle, looking and snaring are different vital threats dealing with fishing cats.

Above all, nonetheless, the survival of this water-loving species is intertwined with wetlands well being and habitat preservation, say consultants. These watery ecosystems are beneath ever higher menace as they’re degraded or transformed for growth, aquaculture or agriculture.

“Wherever a good population of these cats exist, the wetlands are still in good shape and would benefit from increased conservation vigilance,” says Adhya. Likewise, preserving these intact wetlands stays paramount for combating local weather change, and for sustaining the varied ecosystem providers these watery enclaves present, she provides.

For that motive, in her view, fishing cats have a “very important role” to play as ambassadors for endangered wetland ecosystems — standing out as a charismatic cat, albeit one perched on the smaller department of the Felidae family, with its 45-plus species worldwide.

Promoting this ambassadorial position will help defend uncared for wetlands, Adhya argues, pointing to a recent instance in West Bengal’s Dankuni wetland complex.

This huge marshland in India’s east is a crucial stronghold for fishing cats and numerous other species, however for many years the ecosystem suffered degradation from business, water air pollution and land conversion. After a protracted litigation battle brought by several NGOs, a declaration in 2022 protected all West Bengal state wetlands bigger than 2.25 hectares (5.56 acres).

Adhya says this very important win got here partly due to the energetic presence of the fishing cat, which was declared West Bengal’s state animal again in 2012, and which right this moment is acknowledged as a protected species and as an interesting wetland specialist.

In 2020, the fishing cat became an ambassador species for Chilika Lake, a Ramsar site in India’s Odisha state, putting the cat on the forefront of wetland conservation there. By 2021, the primary ever survey of the species in that locale was underway.

Adhya and her colleagues had been at work in Chilika Lake, participating with native communities and fisherfolk to build consciousness, monitor fishing cat populations, and altering species perceptions. Year-round conservation surveillance is now carried out by skilled fisherfolk.

“The … entire bigger vision is to link the healthy wetlands to fishing cat conservation and human sustenance,” Adhya explains. “We try to work to instill this feeling [of pride and responsibility] into the community.”

Other organizations in India are actually deeply concerned in fishing cat preservation, organizing profitable Fishing Cat Protection Committees, youth camps, conservation initiatives and goat seed banks, which offer group members with livestock to assist their livelihoods. Many members of such teams have gone on to kind their very own teams, with the end result that looking and killing of fishing cats has been diminished in some areas, in accordance with Adhya.

“Awareness seems to have really kicked off in West Bengal,” she provides. “Over the years we’ve been able to create networks of people who now take up individual ventures for fishing cats. There’s a lot of eyes, ears and voices for fishing cats.”

She is now optimistic that concerted motion can handle smaller threats, resembling human-wildlife battle and looking, by participating and empowering communities and residents. “To keep the threat level low and not let it go beyond a certain threshold, I think the presence of conservationists is very important,” she says.

“However, in the bigger scheme of things, if development continues as it is, if business as it is continues, then fishing cats are not going to do well. Because wetlands are going to disappear.”

Joining palms to check and defend fishing cats

Since the Fishing Cat Project started in 2010, comparable initiatives devoted to defending the species have blossomed in different vary nations. There are actually 13 such initiatives, all working beneath the banner of the Fishing Cat Conservation Alliance (FCCA).

Panthera, a world wildcat conservation NGO, gives the FCCA with very important funding and technical assist, notes Wai-Ming Wong, director of small cat conservation science at Panthera and vice chairman of the FCCA.

Still, small cat conservation struggles to beat a funding vacuum, with a lot donor money usually directed towards serving to better-known, larger, extra charismatic cats. But in Cambodia, for instance, a skinny funding lifeline has helped Herranz Muñoz’s cat conservation undertaking transition from a quest to show the persistence of the fishing cat there, to an organization working throughout a number of websites within the nation to guard it. Adhya provides that assist by way of the FCCA helps her personal organization cowl basic operation prices, with out which her analysis and advocacy wouldn’t be potential.

This cooperative funding mannequin, largely distinctive for small cats, gives greater than very important money. Being a small cat group member affords networking alternatives for sharing species information and activism methods.

Pakistan’s fishing cat project, for instance, is led by Zafeer Ahmed Shaikh, a senior highschool pupil and passionate conservationist. Prior to his contacting the fishing cat community, information of the species in Pakistan was scarce, says FCCA president and revered small cat researcher Jim Sanderson. Shaikh and his workforce are actually implementing a variety of conservation actions, as they replicate successes primarily based on different FCCA members’ experiences.

Local improvements are flourishing throughout nationwide boundaries: In Nepal, fishing cat conservationists are working fish farms to assist group livelihoods; in Cambodia, fishing cat advocates are concerned in community-driven mangrove restoration; whereas in Sri Lanka, efforts are focusing on extreme roadkill dangers.

Though the latter is much less of a menace in Pakistan than in Sri Lanka, replicating this technique has reaped sudden advantages there, says Shaikh. “The [wildlife warning] signs have been popular among local communities … with some local leaders wanting them placed in their areas as well.” He provides, “We have been able to showcase many more species including jungle cats [Felis chaus] and other native fauna,” utilizing the indicators.

Thanks to those and different profile-raising ways, the fishing cat now advantages from much more conservation motion than it did a decade in the past. But this felid will stay locked in an existential battle as long as its core habitat is beneath menace, warns Giridhar Malla, a conservationist and founding father of India’s Godavari Fishing Cat Project, an FCCA member.

“We want the communities to change, we want people to know the fishing cat,” he says. “The threats are real and ongoing and there is an urgent need to protect the species. That’s what we are committed to work on.”

Banner picture: A fishing cat caught on digital camera wandering by way of a shrimp farm in Thailand, the place wildcats can run into battle with native communities. Panthera operates a undertaking to foster coexistence between farmers and felids. Image courtesy of Sebastian Kennerknecht/Panthera. 

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Citations:

Chowdhury, S. U., Chowdhury, A. R., Ahmed, S., & Bin Muzaffar, S. (2015). Human-fishing cat conflicts and conservation wants of fishing cats in Bangladesh. CATnews, 62, 4-7. Retrieved from

Ganguly, D., & Adhya, T. (2021). How fishing cats Prionailurus viverrinus Bennett, 1833 fish: Describing a felid’s technique to hunt aquatic prey. Mammalia, 86(2), 182-189. doi:10.1515/mammalia-2020-0133

Malla, G., Ray, P., Srinivas, Y., Malla, S., Reddy, B. T., Hayward, M., & Sivakumar, Ok. (2024). Fish on the platter! Dietary habits of fishing cats (Prionailurus viverrinus) within the Godavari Delta, India. Mammal Research, 1-10. doi:10.1007/s13364-023-00731-0

Sadik, A. S., & Akash, M. (2024). A treetop diner: Camera trapping reveals novel arboreal foraging by fishing cats on colonial nesting birds in Bangladesh. Mammalia, 88(2), 100-105. doi:10.1515/mammalia-2023-0074

Phosri, Ok., Tantipisanuh, N., Chutipong, W., Gore, M. L., Giordano, A. J., & Ngoprasert, D. (2021). Fishing cats in an anthropogenic panorama: A multi-method evaluation of native inhabitants standing and threats. Global Ecology and Conservation, 27, e01615. doi:10.1016/j.gecco.2021.e01615

Ratnayaka, A. A., Serieys, L. E., Prasad, T., Leighton, G. R., Sanderson, J. G., & Leung, L. Ok. (2021). Urban habitat use and home ranges of fishing cats in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Mammalian Biology, 102(1), 271-277. doi:10.1007/s42991-021-00198-z

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