Once feared as ‘mini tiger,’ wild cat ‘Mecho Biral’ now finds protectors in rural Bangladesh

Beyond the paved roads of Chuadanga town, the landscape quickly opens into paddy fields, wetlands and thickets. Near Belgachhi village lies Bakchar Beel, a wetland that expands with the rains and retreats during the dry months, leaving fields of rice in its place.

It was here, about a decade ago, that farmers noticed an animal they did not recognize.

It moved along the narrow ridges between paddy fields and disappeared into the vegetation. From a distance, its spotted coat and heavy build made it look, to some villagers, like a small tiger.

So that was what they called it…the “small tiger.” Then it appeared again, this time with three kittens.

Curiosity turned to anxiety. Some villagers thought it might be a smaller species of tiger. Others assumed it was a dangerous wild predator living too close to their homes and fields.

It was neither.

The animal was a fishing cat, known as ‘Mecho Biral,’ a wetland-dependent wild feline found across parts of South and Southeast Asia. In rural Bangladesh, its survival increasingly depends on landscapes where wetlands, farms, roads and human settlements overlap.

For the fishing cats around Belgachhi, that overlap has produced an unusual story: an animal once feared by villagers has become the focus of a local conservation campaign.

The shift began with a storm and a single kitten.

After the paddy harvest one year, a powerful nor’wester swept through the area. The following morning, farmers found a fishing cat kitten alone in a field. Its mother appeared to have moved two other kittens but left this one behind during the storm.

The farmers caught it and put it in a cage. News eventually reached Bakhtiar Hamid, a resident of Belgachhi who now works as an assistant teacher at Gaidghat Government Primary School in Chuadanga Sadar.

When Hamid saw the animal, he immediately recognized what the villagers’ “small tiger” actually was. He also knew he did not want to keep it.

A kitten returned to the wild

The rain had left the soil soft, preserving animal tracks. Hamid reasoned that if he followed the mother’s footprints, he might find where she had taken the other kittens.

That afternoon, he began searching.

The tracks led about 200 metres from the paddy field to a betel-leaf plantation. Around a hole in the ground, he found signs that the mother and her two remaining kittens had recently been there.

Hamid concluded that she was probably still in the area.

After 8 that night, he returned alone. He removed the captured kitten from its cage and left it in a protected spot near where the tracks had ended. He hoped its scent and calls would draw its mother back.

Early the next morning, he returned. The kitten had disappeared but in the soft earth were fresh fishing cat tracks. The mother had apparently found it.

For Hamid, the episode established a principle that would guide much of his subsequent work: rescuing wildlife was not about taking possession of an animal. Whenever possible, it was about returning the animal to the habitat from which it had come.

He and several friends eventually began working through Pankouri, a local organization focused on nature and wildlife around Belgachhi and neighboring areas. Fishing cats soon became one of their main concerns.

The problem was not simply injured animals. It was what people thought they were seeing.

A fishing cat can appear much larger than a domestic cat. Its stocky body, short tail, dark stripes and spotted coat can be striking when glimpsed through tall grass or a paddy field. For villagers unfamiliar with the species, “tiger” became a convenient description.

The consequences could be fatal.

Hamid told Daily Waadaa that some people killed fishing cats because they believed the animals were dangerous. Others captured them when they entered villages.

Pankouri began responding to reports of trapped or injured animals while trying to persuade residents that the cats did not need to be killed simply because they had appeared near people.

Over roughly a decade, the group says it has been directly or indirectly involved in rescuing and releasing more than 40 fishing cats.

Some were found wounded. Some had been captured. Others had wandered into settlements, where their appearance caused alarm. The cases could require much more than opening a cage.

A severely injured fishing cat was once reported in Jamjami Union in Alamdanga. After rescuing it, the group found that the animal appeared to have neurological problems.

Following veterinary advice, it was given initial treatment and then transferred to the Wildlife Management and Nature Conservation Division in Khulna for further care.

It eventually recovered and was released in the Sundarbans.

Another fishing cat was struck by a vehicle about two years ago, suffering serious injuries to its jaw and one eye. It, too, was rescued and treated before being released.

The group then monitored the area to see whether there were signs that the animal had failed to survive. None emerged.

For the volunteers, release has increasingly become as important as rescue. Getting an animal away from immediate danger is only the first step. The harder question is whether it can return to the wild and remain there.

Changing what villagers see

Pankouri has also concluded that rescuing fishing cats one at a time will do little if the encounters that put them at risk continue.

Its campaign has therefore moved into schools, marketplaces and village streets.

The group organizes public meetings and makes announcements over loudspeakers. It distributes posters and leaflets, puts wildlife information on billboards and places stickers on vehicles.

Fishing cats have also begun appearing on walls.

Murals and graffiti near schools, colleges and rural markets depict the animal and introduce residents to a species many may have encountered without knowing its name.

The message is that the animal in the paddy field is not a tiger that has arrived from somewhere else. It belongs to the wetland landscape around the village.

That landscape, however, is changing.

Pankouri is now working with the Department of Zoology at the University of Dhaka, with support from the Arannayk Foundation, to study fishing cats in the area more systematically.

Researchers are using interviews, surveys and camera traps to determine where the animals occur, how they move, which habitats they use and where encounters with humans are most frequent.

The work could provide something the conservation effort has so far lacked: a clearer record of how fishing cats are distributed across the area and how their behavior is changing as their habitat comes under pressure.

Muntasir Akash, an assistant professor in the University of Dhaka’s Department of Zoology told Waadaa that he identifies habitat loss as a central problem facing the species.

For fishing cats, wetlands are not empty spaces between villages. They are feeding and breeding grounds. As those areas shrink or are transformed, the animals are pushed into closer contact with farms, roads and homes.

That makes the work in Belgachhi as much about people as about cats.

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