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Bengal

About 385 fishing cats found in the Sundarbans: Survey report

About 385 fishing cats found in the Sundarbans: Survey report
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KOLKATA: The state Forest department has found a healthy population of as many as 385 fishing cats under Sundarban Tiger Reserve (STR) in its first ever census of Bengal's state animal. The Fishing Cat Status Report 2022 with a detailed description and photographs has been recently released by the state Forest department.Fishing cat (baghrol in Bengali) is included in Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. It is declared as vulnerable in IUCN and is supposed to receive the highest conservation measures, like tigers and elephants.

Among the four parts under STR, the Basirhat range has around 130 fishing cats, the Sajnekhali Wildlife Sanctuary Range has 97, the National Park East has 60 and the National Park West has 98.

The population of tigers in Sundarbans is established using camera trap exercise which is a capture- recapture method of population estimation. The census of the fishing cats has been derived from an analysis of images of fishing cats captured by trap cameras set up as part of the national tiger census this year.

The trap cameras were installed in December 2021 and retrieved in January 2022. "A total of 450 images were captured which included some doubtful images while some others were captured twice," a senior official of the state Forest department said.

Fishing cats thrive in the mangrove delta because of ample supply of fish, the main prey of the animals. Moreover minimum human intervention also eliminates the chance of conflict with humans. "The Fishing Cat Status Report 2022 has yielded valuable data on the current population and the distribution pattern of the species. It also provides valuable insights to undertake location specific interventions that will help us to sustain and increase the population in the reserve," Debal Ray, state Chief Wildlife Warden said. Ray said that the Forest department will also make efforts to estimate the population of fishing cats in non forest areas too. In the recent past there has been disturbing reports of fishing cats getting killed in road accidents and also being clobbered to death or poisoned by humans particularly in Howrah and Hooghly district. Shrinking wetlands has dwindled their numbers and forced them to stray into human settlements and prey on fish and livestock.

The first census of fishing cats was conducted at Chilka Lake in Odisha, which is Asia's largest brackish water lagoon. The report estimated the animals' population to be 176.

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