Presence of rare Asiatic golden cat in Assam’s Manas National Park reconfirmed

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has put the animal, protected under Scheduled-I of India’s Wildlife Act, 1972, as 'Near Threatened' in its Red List.

Guwahati: Wildlife experts have reconfirmed the existence of Asiatic golden cat, a rare medium-sized felid, in Assam's Manas National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has put the animal (Catopuma temminckii), protected under Scheduled-I of India’s Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, as 'Near Threatened' in its Red List.

Environment and Forest Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary said that the presence of the species has been reconfirmed with camera trap captures, as highlighted in the latest IUCN newsletter CATnews.

A team of officials from the Assam Forest Department, conservationists from the biodiversity conservation organisation 'Aaranyak' and from other parts of the country, have reconfirmed the existence of the cat in Manas National Park.

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, and at elevations ranging from 0 m to 3,738 m.

“Despite the species 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.

“Nevertheless, two photographic captures of the species were made in December 2019 and January 2021, reconfirming its presence in the park,” the project's lead scientist M Firoz Ahmed said in the CATnews article.

Besides Ahmed, senior conservation biologist Dr Dipankar Lahkar along with seven other conservationists contributed to the research findings.