Misidentified as ‘tigers’, the fishing cat’s dispute with human beings is among the primary factors behind their constant decrease throughout the nation
Fishing cat, typically and incorrectly called as Fishing tiger. Photo Adnan Azad
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Fishing cat, typically and incorrectly called as Fishing tiger. Photo Adnan Azad
It was a winter season early morning at the Lawachara National Park in Moulvibazar. I was following a stream, with heavy photographic equipment digging into my shoulders with every passing minute.
Suddenly, I heard a grumble in the range. A barrette bend in front of me was obstructing my sight.
”It might be some cats combating,” I thought. My heart beat and my speed accelerated in tandem.
With each stride, the sound ended up being louder. I slipped past the bend and looked to my left. I saw 2 fishing cats breeding by the sandbed beside the pond. Their love-making produced a weird hooting noise. The 2 cats saw me as I took the video camera off my shoulder, and they vanished into the forest. I stopped working to catch an image of their breeding, however I handled to catch the minute of their escape.
As a wildlife professional photographer, I felt exceptionally lucky to have actually had the ability to witness the breeding of these unusual animals in the wild, despite the fact that it was just for 3 seconds.
Watching a fishing cat crossing a canal is an uncommon luck. Photo Adnan Azad
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Watching a fishing cat crossing a canal is an uncommon luck. Photo Adnan Azad
After this encounter, I invested lots of nights in Hail Haor, Moulvibazar every year in hopes of seeing this nighttime cat and photographing its way of life.
Once I invested twenty-one successive nights there. I utilized to sleep throughout the day, and from the afternoon till dawn, I remained hidden in a camouflage conceal, behind strong torchlights, headlamps, and video camera flashlights, in some cases just sitting or depending on the bushes. As a benefit for all the effort, I saw and photographed unusual minutes not experienced by lots of — the cat diving into the water, capturing fish, or swimming through the Haor.
Most understand this animal as Mechho Bagh (fishing tiger). Even in West Bengal, India, they are referred to as “Baghrole”. I likewise took them as some form of a fish-eating tiger. Then distinguished zoologist Professor Dr Reza Khan assisted me with the cats’ identity. ”They are just a types of fish-eating, water-loving little cats,” he remedied me.
After discovering this from Dr Khan, I no longer call them tigers. But there is another factor too; individuals get terrified and eliminate these cats just due to the fact that they are called “tigers”. This dispute with human beings is among the primary factors behind their constant decrease throughout the nation.
The English name of the types, “fishing cat”, follows its behaviour. The taxonomic name of the animal is Prionailurus viverrinus. They are rather bigger than domestic cats. The body is covered with thick, thick hair. Males are larger than women. Their coat is straw-grey with a faint yellow-brown tint. The fur on the lower abdominal area is white. The body is spotted, providing a shallow resemblance with tigers. Two black lines increase above the eyes from the forehead to the ears increasing to the shoulder. The cheeks are light white.
Fishing cats are frequently puzzled with leopard cats, another little cat types. Although they look really comparable to inexperienced eyes, leopard cats are rather smaller sized and more yellow-colored. Fishing cats have wider heads, bigger teeth, and rounder and fairly smaller sized ears. The black line on the shoulder of the leopard cat is broken.
These cats are proficient hunters, both in water and on land. They generally reside in locations where there are canals, bilges, rivers, ponds, and swamps. The riverine nation has fishing cats in almost all wetlands. The Sundarbans have a reasonable variety of fishing cats. However, there is no info about them living near torrential rapids.
Fishing cats take advantage of lots of little to medium-sized animals, consisting of fish, snakes, frogs, mice, birds, bunnies, and display lizards. But their primary food is fish. They likewise take domestic poultry if they get a possibility or if healthy food sources are limited. They sit silently for hours in the bushes by the water, waiting on victim. They are likewise excellent at diving and fishing undersea. To help while doing so, their front paws have actually ended up being partly webbed.
Watching a fishing cat crossing a canal is an uncommon luck. Photo Adnan Azad
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Watching a fishing cat crossing a canal is an uncommon luck. Photo Adnan Azad
These animals are nighttime. They spend the day oversleeping thick bushes, large branches of trees, or in holes. They generally go hunting after sundown. The home series of a male cat can be as much as 20 square kilometres. Within every 4-5 square kilometres, there is one female cat.
Like lots of other cats, the fishing cat gives off a kind of aroma (scent) from their body to mark their areas and interact with each other. Female cats bring to life one to 4 kittens per litter after a gestation duration of about 70 days. Babies stick with their moms for 9 months after birth.
Due to the quick boost in business fish farming and duck farming in almost all wetlands in Bangladesh, the variety of fishing cats is going significantly downhill. As the fishing cat enters contact with human beings, the regional individuals frequently error the cat for a tiger or a tiger cub, chase them, and beat them to death. Fishing cats are likewise killed by consuming poisoned bait, or they are caught just to be killed later on.
In other cases, individuals, out of an incorrect understanding, gather the kittens and call the authorities to eliminate them from the area. But the fishing cat is a wetland-dependent types. They are not developed for forest life. In almost all cases, the kittens pass away in custody. Thus, population healing likewise gets cut. Apart from these, water contamination, the filling of wetlands and the building of farming land or homes are likewise other factors for their decline in number. The predicaments of the fishing cat in Bangladesh are lots of.
