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ISSN 1027-2992
CAT
news
N° 59 | AUTUMN 2013
CATnews 59 Autumn 2013
02
CATnews is the newsletter of the Cat Specialist Group,
a component of the Species Survival Commission SSC of the
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It is pub-
lished twice a year, and is available to members and the Friends of
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ISSN 1027-2992 © IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group
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Javier Pereira
Cover Photo: Sand cat in Moroccan Sahara
Photo Alex Sliwa
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opinion whatsoever on the part of the IUCN concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or its authorities, or concerning the
delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.
CATnews 59 Autumn 2013
13
short communication
PALLABI CHAKRABORTY1, LALTHANPUIA2, TRIDIP SHARMA3, RAJARSHI CHAKRABORTY4,
AND TANA TAPI5
First record of grey morph of
Asiatic golden cat in Pakke
Tiger Reserve, India
The Asiatic golden cat Catopuma temminckii has been reported from south-eastern
Asia, particularly from Bhutan, Bangladesh and India. It occurs in various morpho-
logical forms such as the common reddish-brown or golden morph, the rare ocelot
morph, the melanistic morph and the grey morph. A record of the grey morph from
Pakke Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh is presented here. The population size is
not known, but this cat is under threat due to habitat loss and hunting pressure. It is
thus recommended that steps be taken to save this ‘fire cat’ of the east.
The Asiatic golden cat or Temminck’s cat is
a medium-sized, heavily built (9-16 kg) wild
cat of south-eastern Asia, and is about 100-
160 cm long from head to tail. It appears
similar to the African golden cat (Profelis
aurata) but is slightly heavier and has a pro-
portionately longer tail (Sunquist & Sunquist
2002). It is mainly found in rocky areas, de-
ciduous, subtropical, evergreen and tropical
forests, and less frequently in the open and
high altitude terrain of Southeast Asia, Tibet,
Nepal, Bhutan, India, Bangladesh, Thailand,
Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, China,
Malaysia, Sumatra, and the Himalayas. It is
listed as Near Threatened in the 2008 IUCN
Red List, with habitat loss, poaching for its
pelt and bones and of its prey species, and
retaliatory killings for livestock depredation
being some of the main threats (Sanderson
et al. 2008). It is protected as a Schedule I
species in India. Its distribution in India is
concentrated in the north-eastern states of
Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and
Sikkim which have tropical evergreen forests
with hilly terrain or open grasslands (Choud-
hury 2007, Lyngdoh et al. 2011, Datta et al.
2008, Jigme 2011, Bashir et al. 2011). Vari-
ous morphological forms (morphs) have been
recorded - the common reddish-brown or gol-
den morph, the rare ocelot morph, the mela-
nistic morph and the grey morph - throughout
the cat’s distribution at both high (>3000 m.)
and low altitudinal ranges. The most com-
mon morph is fox-red to golden-brown, for
which reason this morph is known as ‘fire
cat’ in many places. All four morphological
variations of the golden cat have been repor-
ted frequently from Bhutan (Jigme 2011) at
various altitudes, 4,033 m being the highest.
In Sikkim, the melanistic morph has been re-
corded from the Khangchendzonga Biosphe-
re Reserve where it occurs more commonly
than previously thought. The ocelot morph is
thought to be more common in China than the
uniform colour morphs (Wang 2007, Jutzeler
et al. 2010).
Study Site
Pakke Tiger Reserve (PTR) covers an area of
862 km2 and lies between 92°36’-93°09’E
and 26°54’-7°16’N. The altitude ranges from
150 to 2,040 m. PTR lies in the foothills of the
Eastern Himalayas in the East Kameng district
of Arunachal Pradesh. The park is surrounded
by forest on most sides. The terrain is rugged
with mountainous ranges in the north and nar-
row plains and sloping hill valleys towards the
south. The reserve slopes southward towards
the river valley of the Brahmaputra. The rivers
and streams in this protected area are the
Pakke, Kameng, Khari, Nameri, Upper Dekorai,
Diji and Lalung. Dry stream beds and nallahs
are common features during the winter, and
there are several lakes (locally called pukhris)
such as the Khari Lake. The general vegetation
type of PTR can be classified as Assam valley
tropical semi-evergreen forest (Champion &
Seth 1968). The area has great biological si-
gnificance due to the richness of its flora and
fauna, a result of its location at the junction of
the Oriental and the Indo-Malayan realms, and
is considered as a biodiversity hotspot (Myers
1991). The area has a subtropical climate with
cold weather from November to March. It re-
ceives rainfall from both the south-west (May-
September) and the north-east monsoons
(November-April). The temperature in the
summer goes up to 30° C and goes down to
2° C in the winter. There are about 60 species
of mammals found there including the elusive
Asiatic golden cat.
Camera-trap record
In PTR the golden-brown morph of the gol-
den cat was first sighted in 2010 (Lyngdoh et
al. 2011). It was also photo-captured in one
of our camera traps in 2011 while we were
monitoring tigers, co-predators and their prey
together with the state forest department of
Arunachal. It was photographed on 14 March
2011 at 11:19 h indicating nocturnal activity.
During a camera-trapping exercise in 2012,
the grey morph of the golden cat was photo-
graphed for the first time (Fig. 1). It is known
to be cathemeral (Holden 2011), and a single
photo was obtained on the tenth day (28 No-
vember 2012) at 09:04 h at 27°01’45.8”N and
92°45’51.02”E, at an elevation of 124 m. The
grey morph golden cat has also been recor-
ded at a higher altitude of 3900 m in Bhutan
(Wang 2007) indicating a varied altitudinal
range.
Hunting of golden cats is widely prevalent
in Arunachal Pradesh, mainly for its meat
and skin. Habitat loss due to deforestation
and hunting pressures are the main threats
to the survival of this small cat. Community-
based wildlife conservation practices, along
Fig. 1. Camera-trap photo of grey morph Asiatic golden cat (WWF-India/Pakke FD).
CATnews 59 Autumn 2013
14
short communication
with curbing dependence on bush-meat and
proposing alternative sustainable livelihood
practices have been suggested as holding the
keys to conserving the habitat of this beauti-
ful cat and of all the other wild animals in PTR
(Lyngdoh et al. 2011).
Acknowledgements
We thank Anupam Sarmah and Jimmy Borah
(WWF-India) for their support for the camera-trap-
ping exercise in PTR. We are grateful to the forest
staff of PTR for their help in the field. We are also
grateful to Subrata Gayen who helped us during
the whole exercise. Special thanks go to Ananta
Das (WWF-India) for his assistance in the field.
References
Bashir T., Bhattacharya T. Poundyal K. & Sathyaku-
mar S. 2011. Notable observations on the mela-
nistic Asiatic golden cat (Pardofelis temminckii)
of Sikkim, India. NeBIO (2011) Vol.2 (1),1-4.
Champion H. G. & Seth S. K. 1968. The Forest
Types of India. The Manager of Publications,
New Delhi, India.
Choudhury A. 2007. Sighting of Asiatic Golden Cat
in the Grasslands of Assam’s Manas National
Park. Cat News 47, 29.
Datta A., Anand M. O. & Naniwadekar R. 2008.
Empty forests: Large carnivore and prey abun-
dance in Namdapha National Park, northeast
India. Biological Conservation 141, 1429-1435.
Holden J. 2001. Small Cats in Kerinci Seblat Na-
tional Park, Sumatra, Indonesia. Cat News 35,
11-14.
Jigme K. 2011. Four colour morphs of and the
altitudinal record for the Asian golden cat in
Bhutan. Cat News 55, 12-13.
Jutzeler E., Xie Y. & Vogt K. 2010. Asiatic golden
cat. Cat News Special Issue 5, 40-41.
Lyngdoh S., Selvan K.M., Gopi G. V. & Habib B. 2011.
First photographic evidences of two rare cats
from Pakke Tiger Reserve, Western Arunachal
Pradesh. Current science, Vol. 101, No. 10, 25.
Myers N. 1991. The biodiversity challenge: expan-
ded “hotspots” analysis. Environmentalist 10,
243-256.
Sanderson J., Mukherjee S., Wilting A., Sunar-
to S., Hearn A., Ross J. & Khan J. A. 2008.
Pardofelis temminckii. IUCN 2010. IUCN Red
List of Threatened Species. Version 2010.4.
<www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 6 May
2013
Sunquist M. & Sunquist F. 2002. The Asiatic gol-
den cat. Wild Cats of the World. University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, U.S.A., pp. 52-56.
Wang S. W. 2007. A Rare Morph of the Asiatic
Golden Cat in Bhutan’s Jigme Singye Wang-
chuck National Park. Cat News 47, 27-28.
1 Project Officer, NBL, WWF-India, Parvati Nagar,
Tezpur-784001, Assam, India
<pallabi.shillong@gmail.com>
2 Project Officer, NBL, WWF-India, Parvati Nagar,
Tezpur-784001, Assam, India.
3 Project Assistant, NBL, WWF-India, Parvati
Nagar, Tezpur-784001, Assam, India.
4 Senior Project Officer, WAL, WWF-India, Parvati
Nagar, Tezpur-784001, Assam, India.
5 Divisional Forest Officer, Pakke Wildlife Division,
Seijosa, Arunachal Pradesh, India.
AI SUZUKI1*, TAN SETHA2,3, THONG SOKHA3 AND SHIGEO KOBAYASHI1
The first photographs of clou-
ded leopards in the Northern
Plains of Cambodia
The first photographs of clouded leopards Neofelis nebulosa in the Northern Plains
of Cambodia were taken in Preah Vihear Protected Forest during the 2012/2013 dry
season. Two individual clouded leopards were detected in evergreen and semi-ev-
ergreen forests in the Protected Forest, which is covered by deciduous dipterocarp
forest for the most part. It is necessary for conservation planning to further investi-
gate the habitat use and distribution of clouded leopards, both within Preah Vihear
Protected Forest and beyond its boundaries.
The clouded leopard occurs in Bangladesh,
Bhutan, China, India, the Lao People’s Demo-
cratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal,
Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia (Sanderson
et al. 2008). In Cambodia, clouded leopards
are known to inhabit the eastern region
(Channa et al. 2010, Gray et al. 2012, WCS
unpublished data 1998, 2001, and 2003), and
the south-western regions (Povey et al. 2009,
Royan 2010).
Study area and method
The photographs were taken during an on-
going survey of carnivores. The study area
was in the Preah Vihear Protected For-
est (13˚51´19˝ - 14˚25´01˝N, 104˚51´42˝
- 105˚47´04˝E) in the Northern Plains of
Cambodia, which is adjacent to national
borders (Fig.1). The Protected Forest covers
an area of 190,027 ha, and is composed of
three main forest types: dry deciduous forest
(66.9%), evergreen forest (18.8%), and semi-
evergreen forest (9.6%; FA 2010).
A camera trap survey was conducted dur-
ing the dry season from November 2012 to
March 2013, using 15 Reconyx PC85 Pro-
fessional cameras (Reconyx, Wisconsin,
USA) and 45 Bushnell Trophy Cam cameras
(Bushnell, Kansas, USA). The survey area of
approximately 150 km2 was in the Reserve
Forests for Special Ecosystems (a priority
area for biodiversity conservation). Camera
traps were placed at individually 49 loca-
tions along animal trails with a minimum
distance of 1km between cameras, which
were mounted on trees 30-50 cm above the
ground.
Results and Discussion
Three photographs of clouded leopards were
captured in a total of 3,123 trap-nights, in-
cluding two photos of different individuals,
distinguished by their pelage pattern. The
first photo (poor quality) was taken at an in-
tersection of trails in a semi-evergreen forest
at 23:27 h on 27 November 2012 (14˚00´25˝
N/105˚18´08˝E, 123 m asl). These trails are
also used by collectors of non-timber forest
products. The second photo was taken ap-
proximately 320 m from a motorcycle road
in an evergreen forest at 20:53 h on 14 De-
cember 2012 (14˚01´47˝ N /105˚20´37˝E, 107
m asl; Fig 2). The third photo was captured
in a dry river-bed on the edge of a semi-
evergreen forest at 5:46 h on 1 March 2013
(13˚58´59˝N/105˚26´14˝E, 103 m asl; Fig. 3).
The second and third images show clouded
leopards with distinctly different pelage pat-
terns.
All three photographs of clouded leopards
were taken in evergreen and semi-evergreen
