- Fishing cats have lost vast swathes of their former range in Thailand, where decades of wetland conversion to fish farms, shrimp ponds and plantations have decimated their numbers.
- With habitats shrinking, these wild cats have been driven to living in human-dominated landscapes, where conflicts often arise.
- Fishing cats perceived as competing with farmers for fish and chickens are sometimes killed in retaliation.
- Activists and NGOs are working to reduce these conflicts and encourage landowners to preserve patches of remaining habitat suitable for the cats.
Pacing paw-to-paw, the fishing cat hisses. About twice the size of a domestic cat, its grey-green eyes fix on the keeper who carries a tub of tilapia on the other side of the fence. The gate of the enclosure at the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT) rescue center in central Thailand’s Phetchaburi province pops open, and the keeper enters.
The prowling cat switches to a loping canter — moving more like an otter than a wild cat — as it whips a fish from the tub and takes it to a corner to dine in privacy. The muscular nape ripples at its powerful jaws make quick work of its slippery fare.
Fishing cats (Prionailurus viverrinus) are superbly adapted to living and hunting in marshes, wetlands and mangroves. Nocturnal hunters, they have an almost unique affinity for water among felines, sporting partially webbed feet, a double-layered coat and ears that seal when submerged. But with these habitats fast disappearing, the species is in trouble.
The IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, considers fishing cats vulnerable to extinction. Fewer than 10,000 individuals are thought to remain in the wild across their range spanning South and Southeast Asia. Globally, they face many of the same threats as other wild cat species: habitat loss, persecution, pollution and genetic problems associated with small and fragmented populations.
In Thailand, a country perhaps better known for its big cats like tigers and leopards, fishing cats often fall under the radar. While no one knows exactly how many individuals remain in the country, what is known is that decades of coastal wetland conversion for shrimp ponds, mining and other industrial uses have decimated their numbers.
“There used to be [fishing] cats in eastern Thailand, but we’ve lost those populations,” says Rattapan Pattanarangsan, conservation program manager at Panthera Thailand, the global wild cat conservation organization. The total Thai population could now tally as few as 150 individuals, he estimates, split between four or five isolated subpopulations mostly outside of Thailand’s protected areas.
The cat prowling the enclosure at WFFT epitomizes the struggles of its wild counterparts. Brought to the center in 2019 alongside three siblings, one of which soon perished, the cat is a victim of rampant wetland destruction. A farmer had discovered the four cubs in a plot of marsh they were bulldozing for a shrimp pond and presumed them orphaned.
Although healthy, the three surviving siblings have little chance of returning to the wild anytime soon. Thailand has strict regulations around the release of wild cats, and even if permission were granted, WFFT would first need to secure resources and personnel to conduct long-term monitoring post-release. Although they’re facing a life of captivity, these cubs are likely the lucky ones.
As wetland specialists, fishing cats depend on habitats that largely fall outside of Thailand’s network of forest-centric protected areas, leaving them exposed to sudden conversion at the whims of policy changes or market shifts. As their natural habitats have diminished, the cats have been forced to eke out a living closer to villages and production landscapes.
This proximity often sparks conflicts, sometimes resulting in targeted killing of the cats. For instance, more than one-third of villagers interviewed for a study in Thailand’s largest fishing cat stronghold recently told researchers they knew of cats being killed for their meat or as retribution within the preceding five years.
Local residents told Mongabay during a visit to a fishing cat stronghold in May 2025 that the perception of conflicts is often far worse than the reality. Fishing cats tend to foot the blame for stealing fish or raiding chickens, they said, even when damage is caused by other animals like rats or monitor lizards. Old tales circulated in the community about the cats’ voracious appetites and deeds have also fanned the flames. “One rumor said that if a fishing cat urinates in your fish pond, the fish will become drunk and float to the surface,” recalled one farmer.
Relentless habitat loss
By far, the best-studied population of fishing cats in Thailand lives in a cluttered landscape of fish farms and shrimp ponds in and around Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park in the western Prachuap Khiri Khan province. Researchers have studied the cats here for two decades using satellite collars, camera traps and scat surveys, revealing a relatively stable population of around 80 individuals.
The national park encompasses an imposing ridge of forested crags, as well as mangroves and a freshwater marsh that’s also recognized as a Ramsar site for its internationally significant wetland wildlife. However, the land outside of the protected area is a patchwork of industrial operations, smaller ponds, coconut plantations and overgrown plots of abandoned land.
Research published in 2024 revealed the local felines spend a lot of time in these human-dominated parts of the landscape, breeding and hunting in and around fallow fields, aquaculture ponds and villages. “We hardly ever find [fishing cats] in the national park, they’re around people’s property,” Rattapan says. “Around the aquaculture, there’s fish, and in the oil palm and coconut plantations there’s rats. But the land use change in these areas is rapid.”
Driving between shrimp ponds south of Khao Sam Roi Yot’s Bueng Bua marsh, Rattapan points out a plot of newly cleared land that once supported fishing cats. A team of researchers from Panthera and Bangkok-based universities had monitored a female cat as she nurtured cubs here mere months ago. What was once tussocky reedbeds — perfect cover for a wetland predator — had become a barren heap of spoil lining the margins of an excavated pit. Further along the road, an expanse of overgrown grassland had been similarly bulldozed and planted with neat rows of coconut seedlings.
Much of this land conversion is likely driven by a tax law introduced in 2019 that incentivizes landowners to turn abandoned lands into productive uses. As in other parts of Thailand, this has driven a wave of land conversion to aquaculture ponds, plantations and real estate, effectively wiping out swathes of potential wildlife habitat in just a couple of years.
A study published in 2021, based on local landowner interviews, indicated that this tax policy alone could trigger the conversion of 30% of suitable fishing cat habitat in Sam Roi Yot district over a five-year period, notwithstanding market fluctuations and other incentives. The researchers urged the government to set up programs that offer exemptions and tax breaks to landowners who protect fishing cat habitats rather than developing them. Such programs, however, remain to be considered.
Enemies no more
With most of the felines prowling territories that fall outside the direct purview of conservation authorities, NGOs like Panthera are taking up the slack to reduce the risk of conflicts. Spreading word among the farming community that fishing cats are a friend, not foe, is crucial to these efforts, Rattapan says. This includes sharing scientific evidence that the species doesn’t, in fact, favor commercially grown fish or shrimp.
Despite their name, research shows, the wild cats living in Sam Roi Yot prey on far more than fish. They also dine on a varied diet of rodents, birds, snakes, insects, crabs and snails. In further proof of the species’ dietary diversity, a 2024 study in Bangladesh recorded fishing cats scaling 8-meter (26-foot) trees to raid bird nests.
This approach seems to be having some impact, Rattapan says, with plantation owners acknowledging the cats’ prowess at controlling prey and pest populations. “Rats are a problem in plantations when they eat the young coconut palms, so farmers are convinced of the fishing cat’s value when they know they prey on rats,” he says.
The most severe conflicts arise, however, when the cats raid chicken pens and occasionally kill valuable fighting cocks. In 2015, researchers who radio-collared 16 cats to track their movements reported high rates of persecution, with more than 60% of the cats killed in a three-year period, many due to chicken raiding.
Although cockfighting exists in a legal gray area in Thailand, if NGOs don’t provide timely solutions, there’s a risk of people taking matters into their own hands, Rattapan says. And ultimately, it’s the cats that will pay: they’ve been poisoned, shot, trapped, drowned and had dogs set on them in the past, he says. “Protecting fishing cats from harm has to be the goal.”
To calm tensions, Panthera helps chicken owners who have experienced conflicts by providing them with rolls of cat-proof wire mesh to build sturdier pens and encourages them to keep their chickens inside at night to prevent losses.
On the gravely banks of a sizeable fishpond backed by coconut palms, Panthera staff deliver several rolls of steel mesh to Yim-Ye, a fish farm owner who also breeds juvenile chickens for the cockfighting industry. He says his pedigree chickens can fetch up to 3,000 baht ($92) each, compared to only 100 baht ($3) if he sells them for meat.
Yim-Ye says, roughly ten years ago, he would routinely kill fishing cats that roamed onto his land. At that time, his chicken pens were made of bamboo and rope netting — little obstacle to all manner of local carnivores. He recalls one harrowing night when a female cat got into a coop. “I think she must’ve brought her cubs to teach them how to kill. There was a high death toll among the chickens, but they didn’t eat them all.” He dealt with the problem by baiting a trap and killing the mother.
Soon thereafter, though, Yim-Ye heard local officials warning farmers about the felines’ protected status and the consequences of harming them. Fishing cats are protected under Thailand’s wildlife laws, prohibiting their hunting, possession or trade. Violating these rules can result in imprisonment for up to 10 years and/or a fine of up to 1 million baht ($30,700).
Since then, Yim-Ye says, he’s switched his approach from killing the cats to managing his chickens. He now secures his flock inside their pen at night and reinforces it with steel mesh, like that provided by Panthera.
Yim-Ye says fishing cats still frequent his land, but he no longer views them as an enemy. Still, he’s not particularly fond of them. “When I see a fishing cat, it’s just like seeing this or that bird,” he says, with a casual wave of his hand.
Sweet talk of conservation
Conservation groups are also exploring ways to minimize habitat loss by supporting the development of livelihoods that offer an alternative to land conversion.
Supoj Sukapat, a teacher at Sam Roi Yot School, has been leading a local youth conservation initiative called Rak Thung, or “Love Marshlands,” since 1996. Students ranging between 7 and 12 years old learn how to identify birds in the local Bueng Bua marsh, have lessons on fishing cat ecology, and are taught how to protect wildlife habitats. Members of the group even help researchers check camera traps from time to time.
“I believe learning is everywhere,” Supoj told Mongabay during a visit to the school in May 2025. “It’s in the marshland, in the real world, not confined to the classroom.”
Supoj says the group’s efforts have helped create local interest in wildlife. This includes the way people view the fishing cats, with children asking their parents not to harm them. “Conservation shouldn’t be about blaming people with harsh talk, telling them their behavior is no good,” he says. “It should be sweet talk … from a place of understanding.”
Local support for fishing cats is growing: Neighborhood businesses manufacture fishing cat-branded fish snacks, and ecotourism guides tell visitors about the cats during their wetland bird tours.
Nirut Thaokosa, a volunteer leader with the Rak Thung group and ecotourism guide, says he’s impressed by the fishing cat’s ability to attract tourists who are willing to stay in village homestays and support local businesses. “We try to show farmers that they’re paying very little, just a few fish from their ponds [that the fishing cats hunt], but the whole community can get big benefits from visitors who come to see them.”
The scope of fishing cat tourism has its limits though. Due to the animals’ nocturnal habits, tour guides can only show visitors field signs like footprints and scat. Its potential is also likely confined to areas like Bueng Bua marsh that already draw tourists. In more industrial parts of the landscape, such as the area where Yim-Ye lives, landowners have other priorities.
When asked if earning a small side-income from fishing cat tourism on his land would improve his view of fishing cats, Yim-Ye said probably not — he’s dealing with much bigger financial challenges, like rising feed prices and a dropping market price for seabass. A little extra cash here and there from ecotourists “wouldn’t be worth my time,” he said.
Emerging threats
With work on solutions underway, researchers are turning their attention to emerging threats. Thailand’s remaining fishing cats are geographically isolated — confined to the few places where wetlands persist. This fragmentation prevents the natural exchange of genes between subpopulations, raising concerns about the genetic health of the species.
Initial genetic data from Sam Roi Yot suggests the population shares just one haplotype, Rattapan says, indicating low genetic diversity. This is worrying because low genetic diversity makes it harder for populations to adapt to threats like disease. A vital next step will be investigating the genetic structure of each subpopulation to find out whether translocations or captive breeding might help preserve the species in Thailand over the long-term.
The cats also seem to be encountering an increasingly polluted environment. Researchers have found microplastics in scat samples taken from Sam Roi Yot, for instance, and a camera trap monitored by Panthera recently detected a cat tangled in plastic netting. A recent study from India also underscored the species’ susceptibility to heavy metal contaminants in heavily developed coastal habitats.
Quantifying toxicity levels in Thailand’s fishing cats will be vital to inform conservation actions for the species, Rattapan says. But its implications will extend far beyond the cats themselves. Since toxins travel through the food web, such work will also carry implications for the human inhabitants and consumers of the seafood produced in and around the fishing cats’ home.
As Rattapan puts it: “Fishing cats and people occupy the same ecological role of top predator. So, what happens to fishing cats is likely to happen to humans too.”
Banner image: A camera trap photographs a fishing cat hunting at night near Khao Sam Roi Yot National Park in Thailand. Image © Sebastian Kennerknecht/Panthera.
Carolyn Cowan is a staff writer for Mongabay.
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Citations:
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