World?s First Fishing Cat Census

World’s First Fishing Cat Census

News: The Chilika Lake, Asia’s largest brackish water lagoon, has 176 fishing cats, according to a census done by the Chilika Development Authority (CDA) in collaboration with the Fishing Cat Project (TFCP). This is the world’s first population estimation of the fishing cat done outside the protected area network.

About:
• About twice the size of a typical house cat, the fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) is a feline known to even dive to catch fish. Wetlands are the favorite habitats of the fishing cat.
• In India, fishing cats are mainly found in the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans, on the foothills of the Himalayas along the Ganga and Brahmaputra river valleys and in the Western Ghats.
• The globally threatened cats are found in wetlands in major South and Southeast Asian river basins starting from the Indus in Pakistan till the Mekong in Vietnam and in Sri Lanka and Java.

Protection Status:
• IUCN Status – Endangered
• CITES lists the fishing cat on Appendix II part of Article IV
• In India, the fishing cat is included in Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.