By Haradhan Debnath
Since last month, there was an apparent tension in Gokulnagar of Bisalgarh in Tripura. The villagers, who were mostly dependent on their livestock—hen, ducks and goats, for livelihood, found it hard to protect them from a predator. It remained elusive and unidentified raising suspicions and wild imaginations.
In the first few instances, it was suspected that a new gang of thieves might have become active in the area, who were stealing the livestock. However, soon their suspicion proved wrong.
It was for the first time a local woman spotted the predator and raised the alarm. It was then thought that – as the woman described it as a big cat – a clouded leopard from the deep forest might have started making nocturnal visits to pick up the prey. Often, it would also slip into the village even during the sleepy summer noon.
Now desperate to save their birds from the predator, the local youths started trying to track it. Their efforts succeeded when on Sunday, they finally trapped the cat.
They were close to their idea of the predator’s identity. It was not a Clouded Leopard but a “Fishing Cat”—the state animal of West Bengal.
The locals prepared a cage using readily available materials and laid a trap to encage it. The operation was successful, but unwittingly unaware of the fact that the animal that they had chased down was actually an IUCN red listed animal.
Actually, the fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus) is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 2016. As the name suggests it is also a very good swimmer and fast in hunting down its prey-be it fish in the water or a hen on the ground.
Animesh Das, District Forest Officer of Sepahijala said, “It was a Fishing Cat. The fishing cats are usually found in coastal regions and near the wetlands. But in Tripura this specific animal had been spotted quite frequently”. Das also added, “There are sufficient numbers of Fishing cats in Tripura. In Sepahijala also we have many of them”.
On today’s incident, he said, “We have been informed about the villagers spotting of clouded leopard in the area but as per our records there are no such animals there. When we have been informed about it today once again, a team of forest officials have gone there and found out that it is a Fishing Cat”.
“The animal has been transferred to the Zoo and soon it will undergo treatment in the hospital to see whether it has any disease before being shifted to the enclosure”, he said.
