They quack like ducks and climb trees. Rare fishing cats caught on video in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, scientists have managed to capture footage of a rare fishing cat. In the video, this wild furry animal quacks and squawks as it tries to catch prey.

Fishing cats are well known for their unique water hunting abilities. Scientists also filmed them hunting on the tops of trees, which is very rare for this species of cat, IFLScience writes.

Fishing cats are wild cats of the Asian genus that live in Southeast Asia. These furry cats swim well because nature has endowed them with semi-webbed paws. They are excellent water hunters and even have large premolars for grabbing slippery prey. They can also make duck and frog sounds to lure their prey. Therefore, their tracks are most often found along rivers and swamps.

But it is almost impossible to see fishing cats in trees. So the footage from cameras mounted on trees in northeastern Bangladesh came as a big surprise to scientists. The scientists were studying bird colonies when they saw newborn chicks being stolen by fishing cats from nests woven at a height of 8 meters.

Obviously, they have to take such a desperate and unnatural step for this species of cat to survive. After all, since 2016, fishing cats have been listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List due to human interference, including housing construction, hunting, fishing, and deforestation. And only 6 to 11 percent of the protected areas where these wild cats live are protected.

"The need for their protection is very acute. Therefore, the number and size of protected areas should be increased to include more habitats where these species of cats are found," said Mats Bjorklund, Professor Emeritus of Zooecology at Uppsala University.

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