The Behavior of the Fishing Cat
The Behavior of the Fishing Cat
Milliner, Nicole E.
Biology Department, Bellarmine University.
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to investigate the behavior of the Fishing Cat, a feline that many have never heard of and little is known about. The cats observed were two Fishing Cats found at the Louisville Zoo. Fishing cats are found in watery habitats in Southern Asia in Indonesia to Sri Lanka. They are slightly larger than domestic cats weighting 26-28 lbs. The top five behaviors observed (of the Fishing cats) are pacing, napping, laying, sitting and cleaning. These cats have much the same behaviors as other cats.
Introduction
In the Island exhibit at the Louisville Zoo lives two cats so rare that “not much is known about their behavior, habitat, or population” (Breeden). The Asian Fishing cat (Felis viverrina) although much like a house cat is slightly bigger weighting about 26-28 pounds and stands 12 to 15 inches at the shoulder. Its coat is an olive grey color with patterns of rows of parallel solid black spots. The ears are short and round with white spots in the middle and black along the back of them (bigcatrescue). Unlike the domestic house cat the Fishing Cat loves the water. It has partially webbed feet. The cat’s fur is very crucial for its adaptation to life in the water. Next to the skin is a layer of dense hair so water can not penetrate it. This coat keeps the cat warm and dry in the coldest of days. Emerging from the first layer of fur is another layer made up of long “guard hairs” which gives the cat its pattern and glossy shine (Breeden). The Fishing cat can be found in the forest boundaries, marshes, swamps and small streams of Southern Asia, from southwestern India and Sri Lanka (fishing cat). Most of the cat’s diet is made up of fish which they dive after and capture. They have been known to scavenge off the killings of tigers and prey on earthly mammals. Very little is known about these cats. They are believed to be solitary animals (bigcatrescue).
Most wild cats live solitary lives except for lions, male cheetahs and domestic cats. Wild cats that live solitary lives still live within a social system. There is not a real answer to why some live in group while many are solitary animals. One hypothesis is that the main objective is food or females. Telemetry data suggest that the Fishing cat follows the usual felid land tenure pattern, in which the male’s range overlaps the females (Sunquist).
The Fishing cat belongs to the Leopard cat lineage. This is the most recent felid lineage emerging only 3.95 million years ago. This lineage includes the leopards and the flat-headed cats, all being closely related (Sunquist).
Predatory aggression in cats is an instrumental aggressive act related to feeding and serves as a motive for a cat’s aggression. Predator aggression of cats possesses its own motivational system that is related to its aggressive system. Lesions of the ventromedial part of the amygdale had drastic effects on predator behavior. These lesions inhibited all the components of the predator act but not the intake of laboratory food. Lesions of the more dorsal and lateral parts of the amygdale decreased food intake but have no effect on any part of the predator act. Predator behavior is independent of feeding motivation. “Dominance is a special class of behavior involving both social and aggressive mechanism” (Fonberg).
In Colombo, the capital of the Asian Island nation of Sri Lanka there is the Bellanwila-Attidya Sanctuary in the Weras Gnaga-Attidya area in South Colombo. The southern half of this sanctuary has been ignored and contains an old canal-lake system that is key to the Fishing Cat’s habitat. A group of researcher set up camera traps to photograph the cats to try to learn more about their behavior. The times on some the photographs taken indicate that the Fishing cats, which are thought to be nocturnal, are seen to be active both during the day and night. Pictures were also taken showing them walking around in pairs (Seidensticker).
Method
Over a period of about three months the Fishing cats were visited in their exhibit at the zoo where they were video taped for about twenty to thirty minutes each visit. This was done at different times of the day to see if there was any certain time they were most active. They were observed any where between 10 to 5 o’clock. The tapes were reviewed and entered into the palm pilot where each behavior was given a letter of the alphabet and as the cat did these behaviors the letter was pressed. The palm pilot would record how long each behavior was performed and how often it was performed. The data was downloaded onto the computer onto the palm emulator which is basically the palm on the computer. I was able to access my data and even add things if needed to. The data could then be transferred to the pdb reader (palm data base reader). In the pdb reader the files were opened, dumped and converted to a csv file. In the CSV converter the data could be accessed and input into a program called Behavioral Analysis where a list of the behaviors, sequence of behaviors, transition and a matrix are given. A timeline of the data can be drawn to illustrate the sequence of the behaviors. From here the data can be copied and pasted into an excel worksheet and put into stat format for analysis.
Results
A pie chart, produced in excel shows the behaviors of the fishing cat and the percentage of what occurred most. The top five behaviors of the cats are: pacing, napping, laying, sitting and cleaning. A graph is also developed to show the transitions between behaviors. The behavior observed the least was drinking with only 1%. A bar graph of the transitions between actions was drawn. According to the graph pace to jump was performed the most with a maximum of 14 times and a standard deviation of 6. There were several transitions that never occurred like wade to sit.
Looking at the timelines produced sit was followed by lay quite a bit and pace was followed by clean. An ethogram can be drawn by taking the top three behaviors; pace, nap, and lay. The size of the squares represents how many times that behavior was observed. The width of the arrows indicates what percent of that behavior leads to the other. According to the graph, pace went to other behaviors the most with only 5% going into napping and 16% into laying, while 55% of the time after laying down the cat would get up and start to pace.
A chi square analysis was done on the top five behaviors and with a .5 to .5 to 1 to 1 to 1 relationship there was a probability of 0.001. An analysis of pacing to napping was also with a .5 to .5 relationship and the probability was 0.01.
Discussion
There were days when I visited the animal that it was sleeping. Other days it was very active pacing back and forth in its enclosure. It seemed to take a certain path as it walked back and forth. There was one day when the cat jumped into its stream of water and walked around looking for food and drank a very common thing for the Fishing cat to do. Watery habitats play a very important part in this cats live and it is obvious by watching them. The Fishing Cats at the zoo are introduced into their exhibit throughout the day. One day while I was observing the cat it walked off the exhibit into its house behind the exhibit. Watching the Fishing Cats these past months it’s obvious that these cats are much like other cats in how they behave. Like many other cats especially house cats, they sleep a lot. There is definitely more research that could be done. It would be good to observe their eating patterns and their interaction within each other. There are two fishing cats at the zoo but there was only one in the actually exhibit at a time. There has been literature published said that fishing cats in zoos do live well together. There is currently research going on with Fishing cats along with Thailand Clouded leopards, with are closely related to the Fishing cat, at the Smithsonian conservation and Research Center’s Department of Reproductive Science in Front royal, VA. (Smithsonian National Zoological Park).
References
Breeden, Stanley; Wright Belinda. Born to Be Wet. International Wildlife. Volume 23
Issue 3. May/June 93. page 20.
Fishing Cat. http://bigcatrescue.org/fishing_cat.htm
Fishing Cat (Prionailurus viverrina). http://home/globalcrossig.net/~brendel/fish.html
The Cyber Zoomobile.
Fonberg, Elzbieta. Neural Mechanisms Involved in the Predator Behaviour of Cats.
Aggressive Behavior. Volume 8, pages 227-219.
Seidensticker, John. Fishing Cats Enjoy City Life. Spotlight on Zoo Science. May
26, 2003. Smithsonian National Zoological Park.
Sunquist, Mel and Fiona. The Ultimate Reference to Every Species Worldwide: Wild Cats of the World. The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London 2002. pages 12-13, 15 and 242-244.