Bangladesh is an important range country for the fishing cat, a wetland-dependent species increasingly affected by habitat loss and conflict with people.
Rescued cats are often released without rehabilitation or post-release monitoring, leaving their fate unknown.
In February 2026, a male fishing cat was rescued by the Bangladesh Forest Department from northern Bangladesh and transferred to the Jankichara Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre.
Weighing just 5 kg and suffering from a severe jaw injury, it was unable to feed properly.
After intensive veterinary care and rehabilitation by the CCA team at Jankichara, the cat recovered and increased its weight to more than 12 kg.
The fishing cat has been named Alfie.
CCA then partnered with Ootterbhag & Indanugger Tea Estate, where a soft-release enclosure was built to allow the cat to acclimatize to the surrounding habitat.
After eight weeks, it was fitted with a 200 g satellite collar, weighing less than 2% of its body weight, and released within the tea estate, which is surrounded by wetlands suitable for fishing cats.
The soft-release enclosure was a crucial part of this work.
Wild animals that are rescued and then moved are usually let go at a site they have never known, and a wild animal that does not recognize the ground around it will often try to travel back to the place where it was caught, crossing roads and settlements and running straight back into the conflict it was rescued from.
Holding Alfie at the release site for eight weeks let him learn the habitat he was going to live in before the door was opened.
These are early attempts, however, and a great deal more information is needed before anyone can say how reliably the method works.
That a tea garden authority is supporting the conservation of this species is itself a promising development.
Tea estates in the north-east of Bangladesh lie within a wetland mosaic that provides vital habitat for fishing cats, and the protection of the species will have to be pursued inside these working tea gardens as much as inside protected areas.
The collar will show how a fishing cat actually moves through and uses a tea garden and the wetlands around it, which is precisely the information needed to make that case.
The collar will allow researchers to monitor its post-release movements and better understand how translocated fishing cats use human-modified landscapes.
The work was carried out in partnership with Ootterbhag & Indanugger Tea Estate, the Bangladesh Forest Department, Ritsumeikan University, SCOPE Foundation (Project Fishing Cat) and the Fishing Cat Conservation Alliance.