Abstract

Fishing cats live sympatrically with the traditional fish-dependent communities whose major food source are fish. Since these communities has been wiping out the fish from the natural wetlands due to the unsustainable harvesting, the fishing cat come into the settlements and raid the fish from the private fish ponds. The farmers then kill the fishing cats in retaliation of their fish depredation by snaring, poisoning and shooting. Considering these facts, the community-based “FISH BANK” project has been initiated in 12 villages of Western Terai Landscape of Nepal. The fish banks are established with seed money from the project and run by the committee of local fish farmers. If fishing cat raid the fish from any private fish ponds, the fish bank provides the compensation to the pond owners and in return the farmers agree to protect fishing cats in their area. Besides compensation, the fish bank also provide the fish to the traditional fishing-dependent communities and local people in very nominal price than the market price. The fish bank is a simple solution for the complex fishing cat and local fishing dependent communities’ conflict and can replicate in other fishing cat habitats.