Our efforts can save the fishing cat from extinction

You might know that cats hate water, and you'd be entirely correct. But there is one major exception to this rule. The fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) is an expert swimmer, around twice the size of a housecat, that loves to hunt in water. It is a beautiful animal, sporting an olive-grey coat decorated with spots and stripes of black. The cat primarily feasts on fish, which it catches using its fascinating retractable claws. Primarily found in wetland habitats where prey is abundant, they have been recorded in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and India. In West Bengal, the fishing cat is the state animal.

However, this captivating cat is in danger of extinction. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, the fishing cat population has declined by over 30 percent globally in the last 15 years, being extirpated from the entirety of the Indonesian island of Java in the process. In Bangladesh, too, the fishing cat faces challenges of its own. Often mistaken for tigers, media reports are rife with tales of these majestic creatures being butchered by disillusioned local villagers. The fishing cat must also contend with other issues such as the degradation of its wetland habitats, illegal wildlife trade, and inadequate funding for its conservation.

Because of the fishing cat's wide and discontinuous range in isolated pockets across the country, a lot of its habitat falls in unprotected lands, where there are more people and therefore more likelihood of conflict occurring. The fishing cat may sometimes attack the locals' livestock for food (as they are an easy target), thus angering the locals who then feel driven to kill the animal. But, as Chowdhury iterates, people often end up killing it for other reasons too, with very little to no logic in doing so.

On the issue of funding, from 2007 to 2013, the seven big cat species – lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, pumas, cheetahs, and snow leopards – received the lion's share of over 99 percent of the cat conservation funds, while the 33 small cat species were left with a meagre fraction of funds. This poses a significant challenge for the efforts to save small wild cats, such as the fishing cat, who face the same intensity of threats as their larger cousins but on substantially fewer funds with which to negotiate these challenges.

As an apex predator, the enigmatic feline that is the fishing cat plays a crucial role in regulating prey populations. Its extinction would have cascading effects on the ecological balance of a delicate ecosystem. It is crucial that the fishing cat be allowed to survive, and thrive, for the benefit of a wetland habitat that has an already dwindling health.

In Bangladesh, the fight to save the species crossed a major milestone in 2012 with the establishment of Project Fishing Cat. Founded by conservation biologist Sayam U Chowdhury, Project Fishing Cat works in one of the fishing cat hotspots in the Hail haor, at the northeast of the country. For the last ten years, this project has been studying fishing cats and mitigating conflicts with locals, saving many felines in the process.

"Here, the main challenge is to conserve its habitat outside protected areas since fishing cats occur widely in various habitat types including villages. So saving these pockets of homestead landscapes is extremely difficult," says Chowdhury. "Secondly, many people think the fishing cat is a big threat and often misidentify [it] as a dangerous animal… and end up killing it or can kill it just for fun!"

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Locals kill fishing cat

Because of the fishing cat's wide and discontinuous range in isolated pockets across the country, a lot of its habitat falls in unprotected lands, where there are more people and therefore more likelihood of conflict occurring. The fishing cat may sometimes attack the locals' livestock for food (as they are an easy target), thus angering the locals who then feel driven to kill the animal. But, as Chowdhury iterates, people often end up killing it for other reasons too, with very little to no logic in doing so.

The fishing cat is fighting for its survival, trying to adapt to new circumstances resulting from human activity. For instance, in Sri Lanka, the fishing cat has crept into the urban landscape as the only known urban population of fishing cats in the world. We in Bangladesh should now do our part to find a way to coexist with this important species in their natural habitat, and improve the public's perception of them, so that unnecessary killings are eliminated. The fishing cat will not be saved overnight. There is no silver bullet when it comes to conservation, and no magic wand we can wave to make all the problems threatening an animal's existence go away. But with the right planning and execution, the fishing cat can make its way back from the verge of extinction.

Faraz Islam is a writer and an avid wildlife conservationist.