Bhubaneswar: Chilika Development Authority (CDA) has designated fishing cat as the new ambassador of Chilika, the oldest Ramsar site of the country.
The decision was taken at the concluding day of the week-long function organised to observe the Wildlife Week.
Fishing cat is a Schedule I species and deserves conservation measures of the highest accord in India like the tiger and elephant. Unfortunately, marshland and mangrove ecosystems, which are fishing cat habitat, are in decline. CDA will be according highest priority to conserving the habitat and its population in future.
Chilika has one of the country’s largest extensive marsh-ecosystem spanning around 100sqkm.
Welcoming CDA’s proposition, Tiasa Adhya, co-founder of Fishing Cat Project said, “Projecting fishing cat as the face of marshlands will raise the profile of fishing cat and marshland ecosystems globally and nationally which are otherwise neglected ecosystems. Locally, it will nurture their value among multiple stakeholders in Chilika.”
These marshes receive the maximum freshwater flow from the tributaries of Mahanadi and seasonal rivulets. Analysis of long-term data collected by CDA showed that this area also has high fish abundance.
This is significant given that fish is the lifeline of Chilika sustaining 2 lakh fishermen families and globally threatened piscivorous mammals like fishing cat, smooth-coated otter and Eurasian otter.
“Management interventions are required to prolong the life of this marshland so that it can continue to provide for the globally endangered fishing cat, hundreds of precious birds that arrive every winter here and to the indigenous fishing community,” said Partha Dey, co-founder, Fishing Cat Project (TFCP).
CDA plans to manage the marshes with a socio-ecological approach involving local stakeholders and ecologists.
An estimation of fishing cat population will be done through camera trap in near future collaboratively by CDA, TFCP and the Indian wing of Fishing Cat Conservation Alliance (FCCA).
The results are expected in the first part of 2021 and will be first of its kind in estimating the apex predator of the coastal ecosystem.
The CDA also decided to have a rescue and rehabilitation centre for birds, Irrawaddy dolphins, fishing cat and otters with the help of Wildlife Trust of India inside the Chilika lagoon.
This centre will cater to a long-standing need for rescue and rehabilitation of the migratory birds and other flagship species of the lagoon, CDA sources said here Thursday.