Pilibhit, 25^th April, 2023: Three rusty spotted cat kittens were successfully reunited with their mother in the wild. The whole process was documented by WTI’s Primary Response Team (RRT) unit in Pilibhit, Uttar Pradesh.

On the morning of the 23^rd, when Jaswinder Singh, a sugarcane farmer in Surajpur village, started harvesting his crop, little did he know that he would stumble into a litter of wild kittens in the middle of his field. Taken aback, he immediately informed the social forestry division. Coming across wild kittens inside sugarcane farms is nothing new. However, in most past instances, they turned out to be leopard cubs. Sugarcane fields make the optimal breeding grounds for big cats as they remain untouched for most part, at least till the harvest season. A close proximity to the protected area adds to the advantage for wildlife seeking undisturbed patches. However, this also becomes a reason for human-wildlife conflicts during the harvest season.

WTI has been working in the Terai landscape to mitigate such instances of conflict and one of the solutions have been setting up village level Primary Response Team (PRT) units. Members of PRT are local volunteers who act as representative who act as a bridge between the community and the response team when the situation demands.

Rusty spotted cat kitten in Surajpur village | Photograph by Chetan

In this instance, it was Chetan, who took the lead. On seeing the kittens, he immediately identified them to be of a rusty spotted cat. He immediately called in WTI’s Rapid Response Team (RRT), stationed at Pilibhit. The team cordoned off the area for safety and installed camera traps for monitoring and document the possible reunion of the kittens with mother. The first night, on 23^rd April, there was no sign of the mother. The team however kept their patience and helped by the forest department, decided to monitor the kittens for another day and another attempt at reunion. At 8.25pm on the 25^th, our camera traps captured of what became the first ever documentation of a successful reunion of rusty spotted cat kittens!

Credits go to our village PRT volunteers who are not just helping their community in mitigating human-large carnivore conflict in the Terai landscape of Uttar Pradesh but also helping in the conservation efforts of other lesser known small cats.

WTI camera traps captures the reunion of rusty spotted cat

The Terai Tiger Project is supported by the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department, Chester Zoo and US Fish and Wildlife Services.