The vulnerable fishing catPrionailurus viverrinusin Odisha, eastern India: status and conservation implications (original) (raw)
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Écoscience, 2020
The fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) is a medium-sized felid, which uses various habitats including areas adjoining wetlands. This species is listed as 'vulnerable' in the IUCN Red List 2016, Appendix 2 of CITES and under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife (Protection) Act. In spite of being mired with several threats, studies on fishing cats outside protected areas are scarce in West Bengal, and their confirmed presence has so far been reported only from the Howrah and Hooghly districts. This is the first published account of the presence of fishing cats in human-dominated landscapes of East Medinipur (West Bengal, India) through camera-trap evidence. We have observed that habitat alterations and disturbances associated with the construction of a brick kiln have possibly led to the displacement of fishing cats and other associated wildlife species from the study area. Similar surveys in yet unexplored areas of fishing cat distribution range are needed to identify remaining populations, threats to their survival and to initiate appropriate conservation initiatives. Our findings indicate that current anthropocentric land-use policies need to be reviewed to reduce anthropogenic disturbances and destruction of habitats sustaining fishing cats and other wildlife in human-dominated landscapes.
New eleveation record of fishing cat occurrence in Odisha eastern India
CATnews, 2021
We report a high elevation record of a fishing cat Prionailurus viverrinus from Odisha, eastern India, where most fishing cat occurrences have previously been recorded below 50 m. A fishing cat was rescued from Ghumsur South Forest Division, Odisha, at an elevation of 160 m in January 2020. This record indicates that the species might be more widely distributed in the State than previously thought.
Fishing cat conservation in human-dominated landscapes in West Bengal, India
IUCN CAT NEWS, 2019
In India, fishing cats Prionailurus vivverinus are found both in protected and unprotected landscapes. To ensure the continued survival of fishing cats in the unprotected human-dominated Amta block of West Bengal state, local conservation enthusiasts started the 'Bhagrol Basa Fishing Cat Project' in 2016. Their efforts to safeguard the fishing cat revealed fascinating findings into the lives of this felid species that appears to be able to live alongside humans. The project's efforts to increase interest within the local community to support fishing cats in the 30 km² area show first results. In this case study, we provide insights into the progress of the project. The experiences offer optimism that, in India, human-fishing cat coexistence may be less concerning than survival of leopards or tigers in human-used lands. To roll out this project further and help protect fishing cats in other unprotected areas, the Bhagrol Basa Fishing Cat Project plans to look beyond its current work area to similar adjoining human-dominated lands of West Bengal.
Recent records of fishing cat and its conservation in coastal South India
In coastal South India, the first published records of confirmed evidence-based observations of fishing cats Prionailurus viverrinus were in 2006, and then again in 2012 and 2014, all from the Coringa Wildlife Sanctuary in the state of Andhra Pradesh. With the use of recent local news articles, interviews with local people, field tracking, and camera-trap surveys outside protected areas, we recorded fishing cats in several more locations along the coastline of Andhra Pradesh from November 2013 until August 2014. We present our findings through an online, interactive map and promote the need for data sharing on fishing cats. Based on the reports and our preliminary findings, we surmise that the Krishna and Coringa Wildlife Sanctuaries and proximal mangroves probably hold the southernmost, sizeable populations of fishing cats in India. We also provide details on needed community-based measures for the long term conservation of fishing cats in this region.
Journal of Animal Diversity
The Fishing cat, Prionailurus viverrinus is a medium-sized, wild felid, native to south and Southeast Asia. The global status of the species has been assessed as 'Vulnerable' by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and it is further listed as 'Endangered' in Nepal. Knowledge on the species is limited due to scarce research studies, resulting in a lack of ecological information. A few conservation programs for the species have been initiated in the past but current concern is that conservation programs may not be sufficient for the long-term survival of the species in Nepal. Therefore, we reviewed the available published scientific literature and anecdotal reports relating to the Fishing cats in Nepal, and used this data to assess current population status, distribution, threats and conservation efforts for the species. We screened and selected 49 scientific papers and reports related to Fishing cats for the current study and analyzed them to produce our findings. Our results found that fishing cats are recorded from five protected areas, and three non-protected wetland areas, within the Terai region of Southern Nepal. Two publications are found that substantiate the population status of the species in the country. In Protected Areas of Nepal, most of the Fishing cat records were accessed through camera trap surveys targeting large cat species. Fishing cats have been facing extinction threats mainly due to poaching, human over-exploitation of local fish stocks, retaliatory killing, wetland shrinkage and conversion, pollution and other conflicts with humans. We believe our review will be a useful guide for conservationists, managers and wildlife researchers to promote the conservation of this charismatic and threatened species in Nepal.
Fishing cat Prionailurus viverrinus distribution and habitat suitability in Nepal
Ecology and Evolution
The fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus, Figure 1) is a globally threatened small cat (5-16 kg) categorized as "Vulnerable" in the IUCN Red List (Mukherjee et al., 2016). It is a habitat specialist, strongly associated with wetlands such as swamps, marshes, rivers, and mangroves (Mishra et al., 2018; Mukherjee et al., 2016). Thus, fishing cats have a patchy distribution throughout their range, primarily in lowland
Nepalese Journal of Zoology
Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve (KTWR) in eastern Terai of Nepal is believed to hold a relatively healthy population of vulnerable fishing cats but has remained unexplored. We conducted camera trapping and questionnaire survey in KTWR and its buffer zone in the winter of 2016 and 2017 to estimate the population status and threats to fishing cat Prionailurus viverrinus. Camera trapping was conducted in 2016 on fish farms in the eastern buffer zone where we found a minimum of nine fishing cat individuals visiting the surveyed fish ponds. The frequency of their visits to fish ponds varied 0–5 (average 2) nights during seven active camera trap nights. A survey in the second year (2017) covered the entire reserve. Spatially Explicit Capture-Recapture models estimated a population of 20 fishing cats with density of 8.4/100 km2 in KTWR and the eastern buffer zone. We interviewed 50 fish farmers to understand the people’s perceptions towards fishing cats. More than 40% of the respondents repo...
Proceedings of the Zoological Society
Prionailurus viverrinus, a wetland-dependent lesser cat with globally declining population, is suffering from increasing destruction/conversion of wetlands for various anthropogenic use, poaching, retaliatory killing etc. In India, they prefer to thrive in dense emergent vegetation adjoining different wetlands along the east coast and Gangetic plains. However, surveys determining their distribution range were carried out long ago and, due to various threats they have been decimated from many areas where they used to thrive earlier. This demands for a reassessment of their present status across its reported distribution range. Here we report the presence of fishing cats (through camera trap evidence) for the first time from a human-dominated wetland habitat of Murshidabad district, West Bengal, India. Out of all camera-trap images in the present study (N = 39), majority are of fishing cats Prionailurus viverrinus (25 pictures, 64.10%) followed by golden jackal Canis aureus (12 pictures, 30.76%), and jungle cat Felis chaus (two pictures, 5.12%). None of these wild fauna were recorded during day time. Fishing cats and golden jackals were mostly recorded between 21:01-3:00 h and 18:00-21:00 h respectively. Two images of jungle cats were also captured, one each during 21:01-00:00 h and 00:01-3:00 h. Similar studies in other wetlands within the distributional range of fishing cats will collectively validate their present distribution, which might be useful for in-situ conservation of this elusive vulnerable species. Keywords Fishing cat Á Camera traps Á First report Á Murshidabad Á Human-dominated area Á Conservation Samrat Chakraborty and Souvik Barik these authors have contributed Equally to this work.
Journal of Threatened Taxa, 2014
for accommodation in their guest houses. We thank M. Ravi, our driver during the field survey. Several people we interacted with, provided information on locations of sites, especially Ajay, Ayyapan, Chacko, Charan, Christopher, Prasanth, Rajeevan, Subramany and Toms for providing information and accompanying us to various sites. We also thank Ginson, Subin and Thangappan for information on the wild cats they had seen. We are grateful to Hema for facilitating accommodation at Trivandrum. We thank Mansi, Gouri and many others in the laboratory at IISER, Pune for helping us through stressful troubleshooting as well as making our stay and work enjoyable. We are grateful to Velumani and Prachi who helped enormously with troubleshooting as well as with ordering and suggesting various DNA extraction kits when we needed them urgently. We thank the editor and reviewers of the manuscript for their comments.