Conservation programme finalised for threatened fishing cats; activists demand action

Finally a ray of hope for the fishing cat, the state animal that is protected under Indian wildlife act, as the West Bengal forest department is all set to undertake a major conservation programme for the species from next year with support of an international funding agency.

The survival of fishing cats is currently under severe threat across West Bengal; claimed wild life activists and admitted by senior government officials.

The threat ranges from habitat shrinkage catered by encroachment of wetlands; killing and accidents.

Recently the killing of three fishing cats in Howrah district has fuelled the demand for appropriate action to conserve the species; which, has been regularly found to be killed in various parts of state particularly in Howrah. An earlier report from WWF- India pointed out that 27 fishing cats got killed in 2011; while a recent IUCN report claimed that 11 cases involving fishing cats happened between January 2019 and February 2021.

“With Japan International Cooperation Agency funding, we have finalised a conservation breeding programme for fishing cats in West Bengal; which is likely to start from mid 2023” said Debal Roy, Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (wild life) in West Bengal to The Plurals on Friday. Roy admitted that the species is under threat due to habitat shrinkage.

“It’s a fact that fishing cats are under threat. We carried out a status survey of fishing cats sometime back and are now in the process of updating it; however, unless the awareness of local people can be increased; it will be difficult to conserve fishing cat,” pointed out H S Debnath, chairman of state biodiversity board.

Incidentally fishing cat is placed under ‘Scheduled I’ category of Indian Wild life act; that grants protection to the animal from poaching, killing, trading as well as being hunted throughout India.

“Fishing cats are mostly found in Howrah; followed by South and North 24 Parganas as well as Hooghly and Murshidabad districts” pointed out Professor Goutam Kumar Saha of Zoology department of Calcutta University; who led a project on fishing cats assigned by West Bengal Biodiversity Board during 2017 to 2019.

The study, jointly executed by Zoological Survey of India, Calcutta University and nonprofit Nature Environment Wildlife Society (NEWS), confirmed the presence of fishing cats in 9 districts of state through camera trapping photography while predicted presence in another 5 districts. West Bengal has 23 districts.

Wild life activists however claim that the administration should be more proactive in conserving the state animal on ground.

“The government agencies need to be more proactive on ground in stopping the killing of the fishing cats, which has almost become a routine. We have seen how the people, who killed three fishing cats in Howrah, got bail easily after absconding initially,” said SamratMondal of Howrah ZillaJouthoParibesh Mancha; the platform working to save the animal.

Mondal pointed out that apart from declining wetlands; people’s aversion towards the animal due to its similarity with tigers both in name – bagh and baghrol in Bengali – and appearance has been catering to the killing.

“Moreover, often people catch and kill fishing cats by default while trying to catch non-domesticated pigs” claimed another activist; echoed by a local forest officer.

“We are actively pursuing the case of killing fishing cats in Howrah; and overall tightening the monitoring” assured PCCF (wild life) Ray; accepting that the monitoring becomes difficult for the forest department as the animal mainly stays in non forest areas.