1st photographic record of Melanistic Golden Cat reported from Buxa Tiger Reserve

KOLKATA: The first photographic record of the Melanistic Golden Cat also known as Temminck’s Cat in Bengal has been reported from the Buxa Tiger Reserve (BTR) in the Alipurduar district.

Camera traps were set up in BTR between January 28, 2021, to May 1, 2021, and during the survey, five photographs of the melanistic morph, out of 17 independent photographs of the Asiatic golden cat was captured from three different locations of the densely vegetated hilly region of Buxaduar Range of the East division of BTR.

With this photographic record, the presence of three morphs of Asiatic Golden Cats in Buxa has been confirmed which shows the wide genetic diversity in a single species in the habitat.

“The same area is shared by golden cat, marbled cat and clouded leopard. This shows potential for further assessment of diversity and existence of more color morphism in feline species (including golden cat) in the reserve,” Parveen Kaswan, deputy director of BTR posted on his Facebook page.

Melanistic Golden Cat is a medium-sized wild cat and is the largest of the small group of oriental felines, with the exception of mainland clouded leopard.

The species is distributed from eastern Nepal to Southeast Asia. In India, it is reported from protected areas of West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland.

This species is listed as Near Threatened in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In India, it is also included under the Scheduled I of the Wildlife Protection Act (1972). The species is remarkably polymorphic in its pelage.

Little is known about the ecology and behaviour of the Asiatic golden cat and the species is experiencing population declines in recent years due to habitat loss and poaching across their range.

“These new records will provide support in laying a foundation for understanding the species and will trigger the further query and conservation interventions for small carnivores in the protected areas of the globe,” a senior official of BTR said.

The finding has been recently published in the CATnews, the newsletter of the cat specialist group of the IUCN species survival commission.