These cats not only keep a check on small mammals, rodents, reptiles and birds but also indicate the health of their bigger cousins like tigers and leopards
A leopard cat photographed in the Sundarbans, West Bengal. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0 The leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), a small wild cat native to South, Southeast and East Asia, was recently spotted in Maharashtra’s Pench, in what is being billed as Central India’s first sighting of the species. However, two researchers who have worked on small wild cats in India, said the spotlight on them was less compared to their bigger cousins.
The leopard cat was captured on images of a camera trap installed at the Narhar beat of the buffer range ‘Nagalwadi’, which is part of Mansingh Deo wildlife sanctuary, according to a statement by Prabhu Nath Shukla, deputy director, Pench Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra.
The leopard cat is the most common and widespread small wild cat after the jungle cat in India due to its adaptive flexibility.
“It is restricted to Northeast India, northern Himalayan states, West Bengal, Odisha and pockets of Western Ghats and is absent in central India,” the statement added.
The leopard cat camera trapped in Pench, Maharashtra. Courtesy: Prabhu Nath Shukla, deputy director, Pench Tiger Reserve, Maharashtra
It explained that India is home to 15 species of felids (members of the family Felidae or cats). This constitutes over 40 per cent of global felid diversity.
“Out of total felid species present in India, 10 are small felids, which is also the highest globally. Though small felids play important ecological and socio-economic roles due their predation mainly on rodents, the data of these felids is deficient,” the statement noted.
“Small wild cats have always been ignored. They are also confused with (hybrid) housecats. Take, for instance, the jungle cat. It has bands on its leg and tail. Hence, there is always a chance of confusion if one is sighted in dense or bushy forests,” wildlife researcher Ashish Jangid, who has worked on the caracal, told Down To Earth (DTE).
“These cats have always been there. It is just that they have not been reported or observed and generally have been overlooked,” he added.
Jangid calls these cats ‘cryptic’ and secretive, due to which they are not as well-known as their bigger cousins. Moreover, even those who should know about them, do not. He tells of a case from Maharashtra where a wild cat thought to be a caracal by the authorities, eventually turned out to be a jungle cat.
“We need to deploy camera traps and understand the landscape so that we do not mistake these cats for something else,” Jangid said.
Dharmendra Khandal, who works with the non-profit Tiger Watch in Rajasthan’s Ranthambhore, said there is hardly any focus on small wild cats.
“It would be a misconception to assume that tigers or mega fauna provide more ecosystem services than smaller ones. Every organism has a role to play in nature. Yes, we have the concept of ‘umbrella’ or ‘keystone’ species. But it does not mean such a species should hog all the spotlight,” Khandal, who recently published a book on the caracal, told DTE.
He noted that these small cats kept rodent, bird and small reptile populations in check. “These cats are also indicators of population increases and declines in tiger and leopard numbers. They increase if the latter reduce and vice versa,” said Khandal.
According to Jangid, big cats and mega fauna are the focus of conservation in many protected areas. “Large mammal conservationists maintain that if bigger species are protected, it will ensure the protection of smaller ones. But this is not always true. Conservation should be species-specific,” he said.
Meanwhile, the statement by Shukla said the camera capture of the leopard cat in Pench “will pave the way for more work on the distribution of the hitherto relatively under-studied felid and will provide a better opportunity to hypothesise the theories of its distribution in India”.
“Studying distribution of any animal is very vital to make any conservation efforts holistic,” it added.
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