Fishing Cat - Distribution and Habitat

Distribution and Habitat

The range of fishing cats extends from eastern Pakistan through the Terai region of the Himalayan foothills in India and Nepal, into Bangladesh, and in Sri Lanka. There are no confirmed records from Peninsular Malaysia, and Vietnam. The island of Java constitutes the eastern limit of their range, but already in the 1990s they were scarce and apparently restricted to tidal forests with sandy or muddy shores, older mangrove stands, and abandoned mangrove plantation areas with fishponds. In March 2003, a single fishing cat was camera trapped in Kulen Promtep Wildlife Sanctuary, northern Cambodia. In January 2008, their presence was confirmed in Botum-Sakor National Park, southwest Cambodia. Populations have also been documented in Thailand. But there are no confirmed records from Laos.

They are strongly associated with wetland, and are typically found in swamps and marshy areas, oxbow lakes, reed beds, tidal creeks and mangrove areas and are more scarce around smaller, fast-moving watercourses. Along watercourses they have been recorded at elevations up to 1,525 m (5,003 ft) in the Indian Himalayas, but most records are from lowland areas. Although fishing cats are widely distributed through a variety of habitat types including both evergreen and tropical dry forest, their occurrence tends to be highly localized.