A new survey at the Chilika Lake, Asia's largest brackish water lagoon in Odisha, has provided the world's first population estimation of the fishing cat.
This is the world's longest-running research and conservation project on fishing cats.
It began in 2010 and is currently underway in two states in India: West Bengal and Odisha.
West Bengal declared fishing cats the state animal in 2012 and the Chilika authorities announced in 2020 that the fishing cat was the lake's ambassador, according to The Fishing Cat Project.
Fishing cats are globally threatened cats that occur in wetlands.
