HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, Oct 22: A team comprising officials from the state Forest Department, conservationists from the region’s leading biodiversity conservation organisation Aaranyak, and several other conservationists from different parts of India has reconfirmed the existence of the Asiatic golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) in Manas National Park.
Although the species was expected to occur in the region based on a direct sighting made in 2007, an intensive annual systematic camera trapping effort of 39,700 trap-days over eight years between 2011 and 2018 yielded no records.
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“Nevertheless, two photographic captures of the species were made in December 2019 and January 2021, following the camera trapping efforts of the state Forest Department, Aaranyak, and Panthera, reconfirming its presence in the park after the end of the ethnopolitical conflict in Manas National Park,” says Dr M Firoz Ahmed, one of the lead authors of the paper.
The findings of this research were published in the summer 2024 edition of ‘CATNews’, a publication of the IUCN SSC Cat Specialist Group, one of the five components of the Species Survival Commission of the IUCN.
Scientists from Aaranyak, Dr M Firoz Ahmed and senior conservation biologist Dr Dipankar Lahkar, along with conservationists Amal Chandra Sarmah, Dr Ramie H Begum, Aprajita Singh, Nibir Medhi, Nitul Kalita, Sunit Kumar Das, and Dr Abishek Harihar, contributed to the research findings.
The Asiatic golden cat is a medium-sized felid with a distribution range spanning the north-eastern Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and southern China. Listed as Near Threatened in the IUCN Red List, the species is protected under Schedule I of India’s Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
This cat is known to occur across a wide range of habitats, including dry deciduous forests, subtropical evergreen forests, tropical rainforests, temperate and sub-alpine forests, at elevations ranging from 0 m to 3,738 m. In Northeast India, the species is recorded from Khangchendzonga Biosphere Reserve in Sikkim, Buxa Tiger Reserve in north Bengal, Nongkhyllem Wildlife Sanctuary, East Garo, South Garo, and Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya; Dampa Tiger Reserve in Mizoram, Namdapha Tiger Reserve, Kamlang Tiger Reserve, Dibang Valley, Pakke Tiger Reserve, Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary, Singchung-Bugun Village Community Reserve, and Talle Valley Wildlife Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh, Intanki National Park in Nagaland, and others. The species is also recorded in many protected areas in Bhutan.
