Speeding vehicles biggest threat to West Bengal's fishing cats

Kolkata: Vehicular collision has emerged as the biggest trigger for fishing cat deaths outside protected areas of Bengal.

A recent paper published in Cat News — a newsletter by International Union for Conservation of Nature — has analysed data from Facebook page of The Fishing Cat Project and media reports, between January 2019 and February 2020, to identify threats to the animal.

“The most persistent threat to fishing cats outside protected areas is speeding vehicles. This calls for concerted efforts to identify vulnerable stretches and introduce speed breakers and reflective signboards,” said author of the study, Divyajyoti Ganguly.

This is followed by deaths due to electrocution (due to wires deployed to kill feral pigs) and ritualistic tribal hunts.

The report also highlights a shift in trend compared to a decade back — 2010-11 — when 27 cases of fishing cat mortality were reported from Howrah and Hooghly, with retaliatory killing being the primary cause of death. “This is because compared to a decade ago, more eyes and ears are looking out for the cat and reporting on them on social media,” says Tiasa Adhya, founder member of The Fishing Cat Project.

Ganguly, in this study, recorded 11 instances of fishing cat mortality during the study period of 14 months. The cases were reported from Howrah (5 reports), Hooghly (2 reports), South 24 Parganas (2 reports), North 24 Parganas (1 report) and Burdwan (1 report). “The most reported cause of fishing cat mortality outside protected areas in Bengal is death by vehicular collision (8 instances), out of which seven were road accidents and one a rail accident . This is followed by death by electrocution (2 instances) and ritualistic tribal hunt (1 instance),” the study says.

Fear psychosis, as per the study, is still a dominant threat where locals kill the animal out of fear. “Locals killed a fishing cat in Murshidabad out of fear recently as they thought the animal would harm them,” said a member of NGO Human and Environment Alliance League (HEAL).