Fishing cat: India
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In Chilika
As in 2021
August 21, 2021: The Times of India
From: August 21, 2021: The Times of India
From: August 21, 2021: The Times of India
Tiasa Adhya is a biologist and co-founder of the Fishing Cat Project. Writing in Times Evoke Inspire, she discusses an intriguing feline which has thrived for centuries in marshy wetlands — and which faces a growing threat today:
My day at work usually begins at 5:30 AM and my commute involves a boat ride across a vast wetland where I track a little-known species called the fishing cat. I work in Odisha’s famous Chilika Lake where I research this wild cat which the IUCN finds vulnerable. A workday means wading through deep waters and scratchy reed beds, sometimes sinking into waist-deep mud and fighting off curious insects. But it is in these mudflats and rustling reeds that I find the fishing cat’s pugmarks and circular burrows. The cat itself is famously elusive and there have been days I’ve returned from the field, denied any signs of the species, frustrated and covered in bites. However, I wouldn’t exchange this for any other work as it involves protecting a species that’s calling out for our help.
The fishing cat is one of only two animals among the 40-odd members of the cat family which can survive in wet landscapes. Weighing seven to 16 kilograms, the fishing cat has a doublelayered coat which keeps its skin from getting wet. It also has partially webbed feet, jutting claws that make perfect fish hooks, a tail it uses like a rudder when it swims and ears which fold in the water, preventing moisture from entering. Every part of the cat has been biologically perfected to help it live in floodplains. The fishing cat thus survived for centuries along South and Southeast Asia’s rivers, from the Ganges and Brahmaputra to the Godavari and Krishna and the Irrawady and Chao Phraya. No wonder the fishing cat is etched on the 900-yearold Angkor Wat complex in Cambodia and captured on relics of the Khmer empire which flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries on the mighty Mekong’s floodplains.
Yet, today, this resilient species faces a growing existential threat. For the last two decades, conservationists haven’t been able to detect it in Vietnam and Java, raising fears of fishing cats becoming endangered or even extinct in these locations. The reason is clear — the fishing cat relies entirely on wetlands, the richest ecosystems on Earth which sustain crustaceans and molluscs, amphibians, fish, birds and mammals. The fishing cat is a top predator in this world of marshes, mangroves and grasslands. But this world is rapidly shrinking now.
Chilika, Asia’s largest brackishwater lagoon, is home to a viable fishing cat population, the lake’s strategic location, between the two protected areas of the Bhitarkanika and Coringa wildlife sanctuaries, playing an important role in maintaining the species along India’s eastern coast. In 2020, the Chilika Development Authority (CDA), the government body in charge of preserving India’s oldest Ramsar site, declared the fishing cat Chilika’s ambassador. But the ambassador’s survival is intertwined with its refuge and today, both face grave challenges.
In the Anthropocene, when human actions are powerfully impacting the Earth, our planet has already lost 87% of its wetlands. Chilika too is changing. While deforestation upstream has increased the lake’s sediment load, dams have reduced the freshwaters that flush out excess sediments, making the lake drier and shallower.
Alongside, the wetlands are being engulfed by aquaculture farms, replacing glorious, sprawling habitat, supporting thousands of birds, otters, turtles, fish and fishing cats, with rectangles cordoned off to grow fish only for human consumption. Many of these farms add toxic effluents to the lake, destroying its wild fish stocks, thus ripping nature’s fabric that sustained human and ecological communities over centuries.
This situation can still be corrected. Traditionally, local communities around the lake cultivated wetland rice varieties that withstood flooding. Growing upto six feet in height, these resemble the natural habitat of the fishing cat. No chemicals are used to cultivate these, so they meet a growing urban desire for organic crops. Yet, these varieties don’t yield large profits and so, farmers often give up their lands to the aquaculture business. If traditional rice varieties could be marketed as organic and conservationfriendly, bringing liveable earnings, this could deter the loss of this habitat. Other mitigations include dredging clogged channels and removing water hyacinths choking the lagoon. The latter was tried in Assam’s wetlands, where it helped wildlife and, with its byproducts, gave people livelihoods.
I write this as I steer my way on a boat through the deep waters of the Chilika Lake. I hope I see even a glimpse of the fishing cat in the marshes today. These enigmatic creatures are signature species of the wetlands that are our food baskets, water reservoirs and carbon sinks — what happens to the fishing cat today will happen to us eventually. As I step into thickets of mud and clouds of insects, I feel only determination driving me forward to gather more data and methods which can protect the unique fishing cat.
