If only Java was gonna be this easy!

 

A few years ago, we visited one of our study sites in northeastern Bangladesh for the first time, a vast rural agricultural and aquacultural landscape amidst seasonally expanding and contracting wetlands. Our goal? To assess the levels of conflict people were experiencing with fishing cats over aquaculture fisheries and livestock, as well as the perspectives of local people toward fishing cats and this conflict.  We achieved our immediate objectives, gathering the information we needed to lay the groundwork for a long-term project that now seeks to find solutions to these problems.  The question however of what behavioral evidence there was to suggest that fishing cats were somewhat habituated to people, was answered relatively soon after our arrival. That first night, I walked around some fish ponds with a flashlight and found this guy, a large male seemingly unconcerned by my presence. If only I could save such luck in Indonesia... but I don't think for a minute it will be this easy!

...but at 87% funded now, anything is possible!!