A cat flat-headed, which was believed to be extinct in Thailandhas been detected in this country about three decades after the last recorded sighting, conservation authorities and an NGO reported on Friday.
Flat-headed cats, the size of a domestic cat, are among the rarest and most endangered wild cats in the world. This species, which lives in Southeast Asia, is considered endangered due to the loss of its natural habitat. He had last been seen in Thailand in 1995.
But a study begun in 2024 allowed, through the use of camera traps, 29 sightings to be made in the Princess Sirindhorn Wildlife Sanctuary, in the south of the country, according to the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Flora Conservation of Thailand (DNP) and the NGO Panthera, dedicated to the conservation of wild cats.
“This rediscovery is both exciting and worrying,” Kaset Sutasha, a veterinarian and researcher at Kasetsart University, told AFP, stressing that the fragmentation of this species’ habitat has made it increasingly “isolated.”
At the moment it has not been possible to determine how many individuals were seen within the framework of this study, since this species does not present distinctive features, which makes counting difficult.
However, the sightings suggest a relatively high concentration of flat-headed cats, Rattapan Pattanarangsan, head of the cat conservation programme, told AFP. panthera.
The images show a female and her calf, an encouraging sign for this species, which also only has one calf at a time.
Nocturnal and elusive, the flathead cat typically lives in wetland ecosystems, such as peat bogs and freshwater mangroves, environments that are extremely difficult for researchers to access, Rattapan explained.
Globally, the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimates that there are about 2,500 adult flathead cats left in the wild, and classifies the species as endangered.
In Thailand, it has long been listed as “probably extinct.”
Thai swamp forests have suffered severe fragmentation, largely due to agricultural expansion, said Kaset, who was not involved in the study but has researched wild cats for years.
Flat-headed cats are also threatened by diseases transmitted by domestic animals.
Kaset stressed that the discovery offers hope for the future of the species, but constitutes nothing more than a “starting point” for the conservation efforts that will have to be deployed.
“What follows is the most important thing: how to allow them to coexist with us in a sustainable way, without being threatened,” the expert stressed.
