How many fishing cats are left in the world

Captive individuals have lived to 12 years of age. Indiscriminate trapping, snaring and poisoning are also taking a toll. Fishing Cats are considered a food item in many areas of their range, and are also persecuted for taking domestic stock. A long-term study in Thailand found 9 of their 17 radio-collared cats had disappeared or been killed by poachers. Working with government officials, the researchers have had the Fishing Cat made part of the provincial natural resources protection policy, and an extensive public awareness conservation campaign is underway.

Read more about the Leopard Cat , a species that is often confused with the Fishing Cat in the wild. As with all wildlife species today, the best way to prevent the extinction of the fishing cat is to save their habitat.

Fishing cats need a very specific type of area to live in, with lots of water. These are also the areas humans are interested in developing so their habitat is disappearing very rapidly. No one knows how many Fishing Cats there are. They live in thick forest in a large number of countries, and it would be impossible to count them. A thick, short fur base layer of fur insulates the cats from wet and cold when in the water, while longer hairs provide camouflage. An underwater surprise attack approach to […].

Like all small wild cats, fishing cats eat rodents like rats and mice, as well as fish. Fishing cats are not dangerous to humans. They are about 3 feet long and weigh lbs.

Like all wild species, they would sooner avoid humans than come into contact with them. Fishing cats are endangered because humans are destroying their habitat, and driving away their prey species. The cats are running out of room to live.

There are multiple authors on all our fact sheets as they are updated whenever we get new information on the cats. I have a plan to study fishing cat in Myanmar, especially in some areas of Ayeyarwaddy Delta region but big challenges for this study are effective camera traps for camera trapping and financial assistance.

So, please give me some suggestions to implement my research on such endangered species in Myanmar. The fishing cat population is widely distributed but discontinuous. They may occur in very low numbers in Java, Thailand, and Myanmar. Their presence in Cambodia was confirmed in , but their current status in that country is unknown.

One problem that has arisen in confirming the existence of the animals in a country is that other relatively small wild cats are sometimes misidentified as fishing cats, and vice versa.

One animal that is quite often confused with the fishing cat is the leopard cat Prionailurus bengalensis , whose population isn't in trouble. The species has a variable coat colour but has spots on its body and a striped head like the fishing cat. It's generally about the size of a domestic cat instead of larger than one.

Fishing cats may live in other parts of Asia, but this needs to be confirmed. Not so long ago they lived in Malaysia, Pakistan, and additional parts of India, for example, and they once lived in Vietnam. There are no recent records indicating that the animals still survive in these areas. The word also refers to the habitat in which the plants are growing. The plants often have a tangle of prop roots that look like stilts. Fishing cats are sometimes found in mangrove swamps, but they don't appear to enter the ocean.

The fishing cat is one of the lesser known wild cats. Some are kept in captivity and can be observed by the public, but there is a lot that is unknown about the life of the animals in the wild. Researchers do know that the animals spend most of their time travelling beside watercourses, especially those that are slow moving.

They are seen in marshes, reed beds, sluggish rivers, streams, lakes, tidal creeks, and mangrove swamps. Freshwater habitats are preferred over ones affected by the tide. The animals are occasionally seen on grasslands some distance from water. A fishing cat is generally a solitary animal and maintains a territory. It marks this territory by rubbing its cheeks or chin over an area, releasing a secretion from scent glands as it does so. It also sprays odoriferous urine. In one study, a male was found to have a large territory that overlapped the smaller territories of several females.

Fishing cats are thought to be mainly nocturnal, though they are sometimes seen during the day. Although the wild animals seem to be solitary, in captivity some live peacefully in groups. The cat's chief prey is fish. According to a stool analysis, fish forms about seventy-five percent of its diet.

Fishing cats also eat amphibians, reptiles, birds, small rodents, mollusks, and insects. When the opportunity arises, they will feed on the dead bodies of domestic cattle.

They are capable of catching goats and pigs and sometimes do so. Fishing cats often enter the water to fish with their paws or to dive or swim underwater to catch their prey. They are strong swimmers. They sometimes tap the water with their paws instead of putting the paw directly into the water to swipe at fish.

It's been suggested that they are mimicking the tap of an insect on the water's surface to attract their prey. Zookeepers report that fishing cats are quite vocal animals. They communicate with hisses, meows, and staccato growls. The growl is unusual for a cat and sounds quite like a dog's bark. Lek the fishing cat can be heard "barking" in the video above. The animals also make chittering sounds during courtship. Although some observations have been made in the wild, most of our knowledge of fishing cat reproduction comes from the study of captive animals.

The animals breed once a year. After mating, the female builds a den in which to give birth. The den is constructed in a patch of dense shrubs or reeds, a tree hollow, or a rock crevice. Gestation lasts for sixty-three to seventy days. The female gives birth to one to four kittens, with the usual number being two. The kittens begin to eat solid food at about two months of age and are usually completely weaned by the age of six months.

They reach their adult size when they are about eight months old. They are ready to live on their own when they are ten to fifteen months old. Fishing cats have lived for up to twelve years in captivity.

Their typical lifespan in the wild is unknown. The kittens generally enter water for the first time when they are around two months old. The water soon becomes a popular place to play and to hunt for living fish.

Learning how to catch fish is an important skill for the youngsters to learn. In captivity, the male fishing cat sometimes helps the female care for her kittens. It's unknown if the males do this in the wild. Fishing cats are in trouble because their habitat is rapidly disappearing. Wetlands are endangered in many parts of Asia and in other parts of the world as well. During , they were reclassified as Vulnerable. As the IUCN quote below says, the apparent improvement in status is due to better information rather than an increase in the number of animals.

The organization says that the fishing cat's population is decreasing, however. Many wetland habitats are being drained and converted to agricultural land and oil palm plantations. In some areas, the wetlands are being transformed into aquaculture ponds in order to farm shrimp or fish. This process drives way fishing cats and other animals that depend on the area for their survival. Humans are also damaging wetlands by pollution and excessive fishing, hunting, and woodcutting,.

In some places, fishing cats have been killed for their pelts or for their meat. In addition, farmers have killed them to protect their animals.

Wetland destruction is by far the biggest thread to the animals, however. Unfortunately, when their usual habitat has been destroyed or has become unusable, some fishing cats have increased their predation on livestock. Others have obtained food from fish ponds that have been established in wetland areas.

This puts the animals into conflict with humans. The change in Red List category is a non-genuine change reflecting the very recent increase in information quality; it does not indicate an improved conservation status for the species since the last assessment.

National laws aim to protect the fishing cat in most of its range. Their existence is not enough to save the species, however. Laws are not always obeyed. In addition, they don't stop the destruction and degradation of wetlands.

Stronger efforts are needed to preserve the animal in the wild. Some people are trying to increase the number of fishing cats by means of captive breeding programs.

These have been established in both Europe and North America. Zoos are keeping careful records of their animals and are exchanging cats to create breeding pairs. This association is a nonprofit organization that works for animal conservation, scientific research, public education, and public recreation. The goal of the SSP program is to carefully manage and conserve endangered animals. At the moment, there are more than SSPs.

One of them applies to the fishing cat. Stronger conservation efforts are needed to reverse the rapidly declining numbers of the fishing cat due to loss of its preferred wetland habitats.

Conservation of wild fishing cats is important, but zoos could play a significant role in the survival of the species. Zoos and wildlife parks certainly have their drawbacks, but they can have benefits, too.

A zoo that cares for its animals well and provides them with as natural an environment as possible can be useful in the education of the public and the breeding of animals that are in trouble. The best solution for the current problem would be to help fishing cats in their wild habitat, however.

The cat eats rats that are a nuisance to humans and that transmit disease. It appears to help control the rat population and decrease the incidence of disease.

Fishing cats probably have a range of behaviours that help to keep their ecosystem healthy, but more research is needed in order to demonstrate this. Litter size varies between and the young are suckled to the age of six months and become independent once they are ten months old.

In the wild, fishing cats live up to an age of 12 years on an average. One of the major threats facing the fishing cat is the destruction of wetlands, which is its preferred habitat.

As a result of human settlement, drainage for agriculture, pollution, and wood-cutting most of the wetlands in India are under threat of destruction. Another threat to the fishing cat is depletion of its main prey-fish due to unsustainable fishing practices. It is also occasionally poached for its skin. Under this Act offenders found guilty can be punished with imprisonment for a term of up to three years or with a fine, which may extend to Rs.

Kantimahanti, meanwhile, would also like to see a comprehensive national law protecting all wetlands. Mangrove forests depend on a delicate balance to survive, says Giridhar Malla, a PhD researcher from the Wildlife Institute of India, who has been studying the fishing cat along the Godavari River delta in Andhra Pradesh, and its links to climate change since He has documented 15 different fishing cats in the area, monitoring their behaviour, especially during lunar phases.

Everything in a mangrove ecosystem depends on the ebb and flow of water, which is linked to the tides governed by the lunar phases. The cats wait tirelessly for the conditions to hunt to be exactly right. During high tide, the surge of water brings in the fish, but the water must ebb for the fishing cat to hunt.

Malla says he observed a fishing cat that had waited eight hours until low tide to catch its fish. The health of the mangroves is inextricably linked to the health of the fishing cat, he says. While the mangrove habitat supports the cat, it also acts as a carbon sink, sequestering four times as much carbon as other tree species.

He's currently studying its role in mitigating climate change. The trees won't survive without freshwater, and have to be planted in the right habitat. The absence of buffer land either side of the river is affecting the growth of mangroves too, because cropping prevents freshwater that they need from reaching the mangrove forests.

Indiscriminate building of dams, which has become so much a part of India's industrial growth, can cause this fragile ecosystem considerable stress as well, says Malla. He's currently petitioning authorities to allow a small amount of water downstream, to prevent the loss of mangrove cover. The Godavari River, where Malla does his field work, is the second largest river in India, after the Ganges.

In the past decades, the river has been dammed in several places, reducing freshwater flow in the area. The impacts of the dams include coastal erosion , as they reduce the flow of sediment to river deltas. Since greater awareness was needed of the intertwined fate of mangroves and fishing cats, in , Malla started an initiative called Children for Fishing Cats.

Children tend to be easier to educate than adults, he says, and they have helped mitigate conflict situations by identifying the cat and advising their parents against harming it. Malla has since published a children ' s book about a fishing cat's journey in the wild and designed a board game called The Fishing Cat and the Creek.

If a player lands in a mangrove patch after a high tide during a full moon, their fishing cat will have access to the richest haul of fish. The fishing cat that feeds the most wins. Feedback on the board game from the fishing communities in area who have played and enjoyed it has largely been positive, says Malla, and has helped deepen understanding. Like Malla, researchers across India working on conserving fishing cat habitat and protecting its species have found it beneficial to embrace local communities.

The fishing cat, on the other hand, may prove to be a hardier species than first thought. Though the IUCN has categori s ed the fishing cat as vulnerable, researchers studying these cats across Asia now marvel at how adaptable it really is. Anya Ratnayaka is a Sri Lankan researcher who has been studying the fishing cat 's behaviour and adaptation in a completely urban environment.

Her work began in , after escalating conflict incidents involving the fishing cat. In the same year, a fishing cat was caught on camera, stealing expensive Japanese koi fish from a pond.

Ratnayaka set up 10 camera traps in different locations, and for months, attempted to follow this cat across the cityscape after tagging it with a GPS device. It went everywhere," she says.