Splash
the Fishing Cat
Splash is sneaky, and loves water, swimming…and fishing!
He lives in Sri Lanka and is the most tech savvy of all ESR’s characters: He creeps out each night from his mangrove forest home to record and post online videos of himself dancing . . . using the laptops of the sleeping conservationists studying him!
He is so amazingly tricky that he gently taps the surface of the water to make fish think the ripple is an insect . . . but when a fish approaches this “meal” . . . it becomes Splash’s meal!
He lies patiently along swampy river banks, and then scoops up fish who wander too close with a quick paw.
He also gracefully dives into rivers headfirst to hunt fish – where his webbed paws help propel him while swimming. His short round ears fold back underwater so no water can enter them. Although his diet consists mainly of fish, he also eats rodents, crabs, crayfish, frogs and snakes.
Although they have disappeared from Vietnam and Indonesia, fishing cats still survive in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia.
Only 3,000-7,500 are left due to human activity – including habitat destruction and fragmentation, pollution, shrimp farms which block rivers, and retaliation for killing farmers’ livestock such as chickens. They are also caught in snares and hunted for their meat and skin.
To save these medium-sized cats, educating locals to admire and protect the cats is vital.
