The forgotten cats of the wild

I usually despise visiting a zoo or a place where wildlife is kept in captivity. When a human being is detained without charges, there will always be people who will speak for his/her release, like representatives of rights groups or family members. For a caged animal, there's no one. Although wildlife like deer and monkeys are kept in fenced areas in Karamjal Wildlife Breeding Centre in the Sundarbans near Mongla, as the name suggests, it is not actually a zoo. Last year, during a research trip to the Sundarbans, I decided to visit this place, where I saw many baby crocodiles in reservoirs. 

Starting from January 29, over the last week, about 60 of those beautiful creatures went missing from the breeding centre. At first, everybody suspected that they were stolen and smuggled. Two of the staffers were also suspended. However, after another two hauls, some of the crocs' body parts were found. On February 6, forest officials claimed to have unearthed the mystery by identifying the miscreant. They did not stop here; they shot the "thief" dead, the thief being a leopard cat, an even more beautiful creature currently at high risk of extinction.

It is beyond comprehension how forest department (FD) officials could just shoot a wild animal that is protected under the Wildlife Act and has its name in the IUCN red list as a vulnerable species. Did they take the cat as a rogue animal that did something it was not supposed to do? I guess not. FD officials know the rule of the jungle. It is perfectly okay for a wild animal to kill and/or eat another if it can manage to do so. It was the job of the staff of the centre to seal the containers perfectly to prevent any harm to the baby crocs until they were released in the wild.

In fact, the reservoirs are well-fenced to prevent entry. Then how did one leopard cat enter the pit under lock and key to take away and kill about 60 baby crocs? Mystery still surrounds the haul and killings. Possibility of foul play and cover-ups cannot be ignored. However, let's assume there were some holes and such on the fence that required repairing and the authorities ignored it. It is then not the cat's fault for which it was shot dead. Of course, according to newspaper reports, the officials tried to capture it and when they failed, they killed it.

It is not this specific leopard cat's death that bothers me most. Rather, it is our collective attitude towards smaller or less glamorous cats like these including the jungle cat and the fishing cat.

In early 2014, a national daily reported that an unknown species of wild animal was seen to be roaming in the shoals of Padma River in Faridpur, attacking and scaring villagers. A friend and I decided to go there to see the animal. By the time we reached the place called North Channel, villagers had run a drive to kill the animals. Fortunately, they didn't find the predators during the campaign. We saw people walking with sticks in fear of those animals. They even kept themselves inside their houses unless it was absolutely necessary to go out.

So we got down to business, hid ourselves in the bushes for two days with cameras in our hands and found that those reportedly ferocious animals dubbed as 'tigers' were nothing but some jungle cats. Actually, they were a lot bigger than usual, but that doesn't matter because the villagers never saw a jungle cat before, and the jungle cats were a bit aggressive in some cases, perhaps because it was mating season for them and/or some cats were trying to protect the cubs nearby. However, we didn't find any truth in reported attacks after interviewing some who claimed to have been attacked earlier on newspapers and word spread like bushfire. It took us some days to ease the fear by visiting a couple of villages, showing people pictures that I took and talking to them about how harmless these creatures are, at least to humans and how they help by killing rice field rats.

Another beautiful but unfortunate wildlife species is the fishing cat. In the same shoal of Padma River in Faridpur, a fishing cat was beaten to death by fishermen just a few days before our visit when a fishing cat got tangled in a fishing net. Villagers showed us the series of pictures of the attractive animal getting hacked and killed. Killing of fishing cats is a usual act countrywide as they are often caught trying to steal poultry.

I always wished to photograph a fishing cat in the wild. Last month, I spent some days in and around Kalenga wildlife sanctuary and Lawachhara national park trying to spot one. Just one day after I returned to Dhaka, someone from Lawachhara called me to inform that a fishing cat was run over by a speeding vehicle very close to the place where I stayed. I just mentioned it to show the many ways in which these cats can get killed. It is worth mentioning that rail tracks and/or roads going through the forests like Lawachhara, Satchhori, Chunati and Madhupur cause death of numerous wildlife animals.

We have seen tremendous expression of love in recent days for the Sundarbans and the only big cat we have, the Bengal Tiger. We rarely talk about smaller cats like the ones mentioned here, which add to our precious biodiversity. With continuing habitat loss, these beautiful creatures are getting closer and closer to extinction every day. It is high time we started acting more responsibly and valued these small predators. It can start with the forest department saying sorry for holding a predator responsible for preying on other wildlife, which in this case happens to be baby crocodiles insufficiently protected in a reproduction centre for which only human negligence is to be blamed.

The writer is an independent researcher. 

E-mail: tanimashraf@live.com