IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Willcox, D.H.A.; Quang Phuong, T.; Minh Duc, H.; The Truong An, N. | |
| The decline of non-_Panthera_ cat species in Vietnam | |
| 2014 Cat News (Special Issue 8): 53-61 | |
Vietnam is likely to have once supported globally significant populations of leopard cat _Prionailurus bengalensis_, Asiatic golden cat _Catopuma temminckii_, marbled cat _Pardofelis marmorata _and mainland clouded leopard _Neofelis nebulosa_, and probably also fishing cat _Prionailurus viverrinus_. Jungle cat _Felis chaus _is also recorded for Vietnam but the limited extent of the species's preferred habitat type, deciduous forest, means that it is unlikely to have ever been widely distributed in the country. The current conservation status of all these small cat species in Vietnam is poorly understood. All traceable verifiable small cat field records from 1 January 1995 to 31 October 2013 were collated and reviewed, as were the results of camera-trap surveys that did not record any cats at all. Only leopard cat had a sizeable number of confirmed records. Several surveys of >1,000 camera trap nights did not record any other species of small cat. Indiscriminate cable-snare trapping is likely to have caused significant declines in Vietnam's non-_Panthera _cat species, and probably extirpated Asiatic golden cat, mainland clouded leopard and marbled cat from plausibly many of Vietnam's protected areas. Vietnam is unlikely to still hold globally significant populations of these three species and immediate conservation efforts should focus on the two countries in Indochina that are still likely to: Cambodia and Lao PDR. The last confirmed fishing cat record for Vietnam is now 13 years old, but given this species's relative tolerance to human-induced habitat changes, and the relatively low amount of snare-trapping in its preferred wetland mosaic habitats, targeted searches for this species in Vietnam are warranted and are a regional conservation priority. |
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