Still around: The flat-headed cat seen at the Princess Sirindhorn Wildlife Sanctuary. — AFP/Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation/Panthera Thailand
An elusive wild cat long feared extinct in Thailand has been rediscovered three decades after the last recorded sighting, conservation authorities and an NGO said.
Flat-headed cats are among the world’s rarest and most threatened wild felines. Their range is limited to South-East Asia and they are endangered because of dwindling habitat.
The domestic cat-sized feline with its distinctive round and close-set eyes was last spotted in a documented sighting in Thailand in 1995.
But an ecological survey that began last year, using camera traps in southern Thailand’s Princess Sirindhorn Wildlife Sanctuary, recorded 29 detections, according to the country’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation and wild cat conservation organisation Panthera.
“The rediscovery is exciting, yet concerning at the same time,” veterinarian and researcher Kaset Sutasha of Kasetsart University said, noting that habitat fragmentation has left the species increasingly “isolated”.
It was not immediately clear how many individuals the detections represent, as the species lacks distinctive markings so counting is tricky.
But the findings suggest a relatively high concentration of the species, Panthera conservation programme manager Rattapan Pattanarangsan said.
The footage included a female flat-headed cat with her cub – a rare and encouraging sign for a species that typically produces only one offspring at a time.
Nocturnal and elusive, the flat-headed cat typically lives in dense wetland ecosystems such as peat swamps and freshwater mangroves, environments that are extremely difficult for researchers to access, Rattapan said.
Globally, the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that around 2,500 adult flat-headed cats remain in the wild, classifying the species as endangered. — AFP
