99984
About the project:
Fishing cats (listed by the IUCN as Endangered since 2008) occur in highly fragmented populations across South and Southeast Asia. Much of their endangerment can be attributed to the drastic degradation and pollution of wetland habitats, conversion of wetlands for aquaculture, and direct persecution by humans. Despite being included in Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972, few to no conservation programmes are in practice for the long term protection fishing cats. To date, only a few individual records and small populations of fishing cats are known to occur on the east coast of Central and South India.
In early 2014, with seed funds from the Mohammed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, the Small Wild Cat Conservation Alliance and Idea Wild, Ashwin Naidu initiated a community-based fishing cat conservation project in coastal Andhra Pradesh (AP), India. Read more here: www.fishingcat.org.
About the speaker:
Ashwin Naidu is a co-founder of the Fishing Cat Conservancy. With his research focusing on the use of non-invasive techniques for wild cat conservation and management, Ashwin completed projects on tigers and leopards in south-central India and mountain lions and bobcats in southwestern United States. Ashwin now uses interdisciplinary scientific approaches and public outreach for small wild cat conservation. Ashwin is an invited member of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group, the University of Arizona (UA) Wild Cat Center and the Wild Felid Association.
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