Saving Fishing Cats Outside Protected Areas

Fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus), the state animal of West Bengal, is fighting a tough battle to survive outside protected areas, finds a recent study. Fishing cats have been listed as vulnerable in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List with their global population declining.

Published in December 2024, the study set out to assess the presence of fishing cats outside protected areas in southern West Bengal. “West Bengal can be called as one of the last strongholds of fishing cats in the country. Our study was carried out in various rural and urban wetland areas of southern West Bengal, spanning more than 67,000 square kilometres,” Samrat Chakraborty, the lead investigator of the study, told Mongabay India.

The research team set up camera traps in 38 locations spanning ten districts and identified 24 habitats where fishing cats were encountered through camera traps. “Of these 24 locations, 17 were previously not known to harbour fishing cats. All of these 24 locations are outside protected areas. And 60% of these locations are adjacent to human settlements where fishes are cultivated in ponds for consumption, while the remaining 40% are near commercial fish cultivation areas known as bherry.”

This proximity to human settlements places them in a highly vulnerable position. An earlier 2022 study, also led by Chakraborty, found retaliatory killing and road accidents to be the major causes of mortality of fishing cats in southern West Bengal, between 2010 and 2021.

The study also assessed potential suitable habitats for fishing cats in the region and found that 88% of highly suitable areas for fishing cats are present outside the protected areas.

Roads, the biggest threat

Chakraborty, who spent his childhood in the city of Barrackpore, West Bengal, remembers witnessing three to four incidents of fishing cat roadkill on the Kalyani Expressway during his school days.

“Roadkill of fishing cats is the biggest cause of concern today. These incidents have increased because highway networks are separating suitable habitat patches of these cats,” he says.

The study finds that the maximum mortality of fishing cats has been reported from Howrah (77 incidents) in the last decade. Chitrak Pramanik, an animal rescuer in Howrah, says, “As per rough estimate, at least 70 fishing cats have been killed in road accidents in Howrah in the last three-four years.”

“To reduce the number of accidents, we proposed roadblocks to control speed, installing CCTV and patrolling in the accident-prone areas. However, it is difficult to get all these done because of the presence of multiple stakeholders like the PWD, roads and police departments,” says Chakraborty.

What’s in a name?

A sizeable number of fishing cats in the state, especially those living near human settlements, have also been victims of retaliatory killing. Chakraborty attributes a lot of these killings to the local name of fishing cats in West Bengal — baghrol.

“In colloquial terms, fishing cats were called baghrol because they have stripes like bagh (tiger in Bengali). As a result, many people associate them with tigers or misidentify them as tiger cubs. They start targeting fishing cats, thinking they are a threat, when actually there is no documented case of fishing cats attacking any adult or minor human,” he says.

To combat the dangers of this misnomer, there have been campaigns to rename fishing cats as mechobiral which means ‘cats which eat fish’. “We have put up boards and are also conveying this in our meetings [with local residents]. The Forest Department is also encouraging people to use this term. This has brought some changes in the last few years. Now, I see people are using the word baghrol less while verbally communicating as well as in social media. The change in name has also brought down the retaliatory killing of fishing cats,” he explains.

Fishing cats have also been killed because of their dietary habits. “As their primary diet is fish, they become competitors for fishermen who sometimes try to kill them. When fish is not available, these cats enter localities and kill ducks and poultry, thus inviting the wrath of their owners,” Chakraborty shares.

He adds that boards and banners have been put up to create awareness against killing of fishing cats. “The boards inform that fishing cats come under Schedule I protection under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972 and killing them can lead to 10 years of imprisonment or a fine of Rs. 30,000, or both. We also tell people not to kill fishing cats as they maintain ecological balance by killing rodents and snakes,” he says.

Ritualistic killings used to be another reason behind the killing of fishing cats. During traditional hunting festivals across south Bengal, scores of hunters armed with traditional weapons used to kill birds, reptiles and mammals including fishing cats. A non-profit called Human & Environment Alliance League (HEAL) fought to abolish these hunts and the Calcutta High Court put up an embargo on these hunts in 2018. As a result, these hunting festivals have stopped in a few districts in West Bengal.

Suitable habitats

As per the study, among districts of southern West Bengal, North 24 Parganas (24.83%), South 24 Parganas (20.85%), East Midnapore (18.07%) and Nadia (13.50%) showed the highest area of suitable habitats for the fishing cat.

Howrah (6.17%) and Hooghly (4.03%) showed lower suitable habitat for fishing cats, though these two districts were previously thought to be the most potential habitat outside the protected areas in the state.

Deepak Mandal, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO), Howrah, said that though there is a good population of fishing cats in the district, no official census has happened in this regard.

“There is a proposal going on over a fishing cat census in Howrah,” he told Mongabay India.

Chakraborty adds that currently there are no suitable habitats for fishing cats in Kolkata, which was not the case in the past. “Back in 1992, a study had mentioned Kolkata as ‘Catland’ for the presence of many species of cats found there. The edge expansion of the city converted nearly 17 square kilometres of wetland area between 1990 and 2011 in the East Kolkata Wetland (EKW) which might lead to the complete destruction of potential fishing cat habitats. In the past 30 years, fishing cat populations have shifted outside the city’s periphery, like Howrah,” Chakraborty said.

According to Pramanik, there is still a very healthy population of fishing cats in Howrah. “Howrah gets its name from the Bengali word haor meaning swampy lake. Howrah has a rich population of fishing cats, especially in rural areas like Bagnan, Amta, Shyampur, Uluberia,” he says. He has rescued more than 50 fishing cats with a group of six friends in the district in the last nine years.

He recalls a 2022 incident when three female fishing cats were poisoned to death by two fishermen from Bagnan. “That got a lot of attention, and the perpetrators had to flee and later take anticipatory bail. But locals understood that killing fishing cats can lead to imprisonment and since then, there have been no retaliatory killing of fishing cats in Howrah,” says Pramanik.

However, fishing cats are facing indirect threats from pigs in Howrah. “Following a swine flu outbreak around a decade and a half ago, the government instructed pig farms to either kill their pigs or release them in the Sundarbans. But the piggeries released them in nearby areas of Kolkata like Howrah. Their numbers increased exponentially and now they have become a menace by destroying crops. People are now putting up wire traps to kill them, which also trap other animals like fishing cats,” Pramanik explains.

As fishing cat habitats are rapidly shrinking in the fast urbanising district of Howrah, Pramanik and his group have identified a five-kilometre stretch of virgin forest land along the banks of Damodar river which can be developed as a biodiversity hotspot. “That entire forest is free from any construction till now. Even the nearest village is a kilometre away. It has good biodiversity like fishing cats, jungle cats, golden jackals, Asian palm civets, porcupines, mongoose, snake, turtle and so on. We have appealed to both the district administration and forest department to develop this area as a biodiversity zone. Currently we use this forest to release the animals we rescue in different parts of the district,” he says.

DFO Mandal said that the proposal is under consideration. “It is a good, offbeat area devoid of any construction so far,” he concurs.

The study concludes that protected areas alone will not be able to guarantee the long-term survival of the fishing cat. It states that more suitable habitats and potential dispersal routes need to be conserved to prevent roadkills, and more awareness about the species is vital.

While fishing cats were declared as the state animal of West Bengal back in 2012, there is still little awareness about this fact, says environmentalist Joydip Kundu, who runs the Kolkata based non-profit Society for Heritage and Ecological Researches (SHER). He says, “The rampant shrinkage of fishing cat habitats like the reedlands, wetlands and marshlands is the biggest concern now. These are being encroached for industrialisation and developmental projects. The biggest challenge for the protection of our state animals is restoring their habitat, which we need to do on a war footing.”

(Published under Creative Commons from Mongabay India. Read the original article here)