catinwater

Thai Officials Raid Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WATCH)

catinwater — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 21:47:12 +0000

I don’t know if you’ve seen the news about the raid on a wildlife rescue facility in Thailand that we visited while working on CAT in WATER. NGOs are saying this is in retaliation for speaking out against poaching and the possible cover ups being perpetrated by businessmen and politicians in connection with elephant camps. More than 103 animals, many endangered and receiving veterinary care, were originally ordered to be confiscated. So far only 13 have been removed, and the number has shrunk to 27 animals slated for confiscation, as of Feb 17. The raids came days after founder Edwin Wiek had spoken out in several media outlets about elephant and tiger poaching.

Even a single animal taken from WFFT is too many. You can easily help. Sign the petition. Share this story, the National Geographic NewsWatch post and video as much as you can. It is already making a difference. If people hadn’t started raising their voices to draw attention to what’s going on, WFFT might be in a worse place. They are not out of the woods yet. You can make a difference.

Thai officials target wildlife rescue center Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand, seize animals from CATinWATER on Vimeo.

National Geographic NewsWatch Post
Armed Thai Officials Raid Wildlife Rescue NGOs

Mo Speaks Thai…Sort Of (WATCH)

catinwater — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 04:57:38 +0000

The fishing cat wants to swim. Pass it on! (PHOTOS)

catinwater — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:07:19 +0000

Sob stories about endangered species are so 2011. So instead we’re sending you a tale about a CAT in WATER. A story about how community, photos and film are giving an endangered animal, the aptly named fishing cat, a chance at survival.

Around this time last year, my friend Joanna Nasar, and I decided to dream big on a conservation project. We also dreamed a bit silly.

“Let’s pick a species that needs help and takes us to a faraway land,” we thought. How about fishing cats? Their name is their occupation. They bark like a dog. They’re found in Thailand. And believe me this cat needs all the help it can get. Less than 10,000 remain in the world, and that’s a sketchy estimate at best.

Joanna Nasar and Morgan Heim, cohorts in fishing cat hunting, with cameras that is, on location in Sam Roi Yod , Thailand.

Practicality was clearly in the back seat tied up with duct tape when we set out. We don’t have any money. Um, have you heard of this thing called Kickstarter? We don’t speak Thai. Pah! We’re good at charades. The country is flooding, and we have to go undercover as tourists to avoid constant scrutiny. Brilliant! I’ve never camera-trapped before, but we can figure that out. “We can handle this,” we thought. We’ll be working with the world expert on fishing cats, Passanan “Namfon” Cutter. Yes Namfon, we just officially gave you that title.

Our clumsiness held a certain fascination and charm with the Thai people. I think they wanted to save us from ourselves.

In some ways, our naivety was both our downfall and saving grace. Everything that could fall apart did. Namfon, who we hoped to work with for a few weeks, returned to the states after four days together because of visa issues. We had more than a month left in Thailand to work with her assistant Ruj, (who didn’t speak English), trying to document everything we could about this cat. Equipment failed almost daily, habitat was destroyed, fishing cats killed, and we got to know the Thai healthcare system on more than one occasion. (Thailand proved to be an effective, though not fun diet program. Note for all those pending travelers to Thailand, Thai healthcare rocks!) Six weeks into the trip, signs of the fishing cat were everywhere, except in front of the camera trap.

Backhoes dig up land in preparation for a new shrimp farm. Just days earlier we were camera trapping in this area. Signs of fishing cats were everywhere, including a mama and kitten. We managed to photograph one fishing cat before we had to move elsewhere. (Photo/Morgan Heim, CAT in WATER)

As everything fell apart, the story also started to come together. Our clumsiness held a certain fascination and charm with the Thai people. I think they wanted to save us from ourselves. Everyday we learned a little bit (nit noy) of Thai and Ruj learned a little English. The Thai people welcomed us into their community. We ate dinner with their families, visited kids in their schools, worked together to fix the things that were broken and continued the search for a fishing cat that seemed to move like a ghost throughout these people’s lives.

Amidst the fishing cat’s crumbling world, we heard tell of a glimmer of hope. We learned that you could rent fishing cat land for less money a year than I spend on coffee in a month. For 80 bucks you could either destroy or save a parcel of fishing cat habitat. Namfon told us that just US $1,700, could rent all the known fishing cat hotspots for a year. “Wow!” we thought. Such goals seemed attainable even for two girls who had just rationed their last packet of Oreos.

We sent this message and a few photos to The WILD Foundation, our main project sponsor, and before we’d even left Thailand, people had reached into their pockets and given enough money to rent land for the fishing cat. The purchase won’t be a permanent fix, but it buys the cats and our researcher friends some time. It shows the communities there that the rest of the world cares about the fishing cat.

School children disperse into fishing cat territory to learn how to use GPS. Namfon employs the enthusiasm and eyes kids, teaching them to use GPSes to help track the fishing cat. (Photo/Morgan Heim, CAT in WATER)

Our work is far from over. Jo and I returned from Thailand with more than two terabytes of footage about the fishing cat. In the last week and half of our trip, persistence paid off and we received not one, but three, visits from a fishing cat named Rip Ear to our trap. The photos are top secret while we try to published them in a major magazine. But we’ve got an early, almost-successful shot we can share with you now. It’s of a newly observed male in the area, and has yet to be named.

We are now editing together a film about our girlventure to a foreign land in search of this strange, endangered cat, including all the characters we met along the way who helped/saved us. We will use the film to raise money for fishing cat conservation and to build local support for the cat’s protection.

Right now, Jo and I are doing this purely out of passion. We work on other projects during the day, so we can edit the film together at night. We dream of working on this full-time, so that we can produce a film at a pace that will actually be able to help the fishing cat.

As I write this now though I can tell you that throughout CAT in WATER, the biggest lesson we learned is that saving the fishing cat depends on community, in Thailand and abroad. That’s what we want to help foster.

So we have a message for you. You’ve got the link to CAT in WATER. “The fishing cat wants to swim.” Pass it on, tweet it, retweet it, facebook and digg it. Then pass it on again and again and again.

SEE MORE PHOTOS FROM THE FIELD

Click to view slideshow.

Photos copyrighted to Morgan Heim and Joanna Nasar, CAT in WATER.

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Tiger Bath

catinwater — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 20:00:47 +0000

I am standing 20 feet away from a magnificent tiger named Meow. Meow is breathtakingly beautiful, like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Meow is calm, he seems to know that these people are here to help him. I look Meow straight in the eye, and Meow blinks his yellow eyes and looks at me.

Then I ask: ”Is the tiger sedated?”

“No,” say Edwin Weik, the director of Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT). Edwin devotes his life to Thailand’s damaged wildlife, doing what he can to give them a chance at a better life.

We are here at the WFFT with Edwin to learn about two rescued fishing cats, but at the moment we are standing in front of a magnificent tiger.

I gulp as Meow, a 12-year-old Bengal tiger that was rescued by WFFT 11 years ago, is carefully carried over to his personal bath tub. That is no small feat when you consider that this tiger weights between 240 -500 lbs! Tigers, I learn, are very clean animals and often take baths multiple times a day. But bath time is important for Meow for more than just cleanliness reasons, it is a chance to rehabilitate and strengthen his leg muscles, so that some day very soon he will be able to walk all on his own again (Read Edwin’s personal account of Meow’s struggle here)

“Meow the tiger at WFFT that has lived at the wildlife rescue center since 2001 came in June 2001 in a very bad physical state. Meow was not able to sit up or even walk when he came in due to several infections, including one to the central nervous system. The only way to make him walk again was by taking him down the lake on a daily basis to exercise his muscles and strengthen his body,” according to the WFFT’s Facebook post on Meow.

Edwin was told multiple times by various veterinarians to give up and put Meow down, but Edwin is a champion of lost causes and a savior of down-on-there-luck animals. And now there is hope for this wild tiger.

Edwin explains that for the first time in awhile Meow walked from where he is currently lying right over to where I am standing. This is great news for Meow, but not the most comforting piece of information for me, still I am gratefully to be standing here.

Edwin hopes that in the New Year Meow will be back on his feet. And after standing in front of such a clearly wild creature, that is my wish for the New Year too.

Join us in wishing Meow a happy and healthy 2012 by watching this short clip.

Fishing cat cubs found

catinwater — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 20:21:41 +0000

Three fishing cat cubs were found in a sugar field in the Indian city of Karad taluka just before Christmas, according to a report by Daily News and Analysis. The cubs are now under the supervision where they were found, and evidence of a female fishing cat has been spotted in the area.

Let’s hope the cubs and mother can be reunited. Far too often discovered fishing cat cubs are “rescued” only to live a life of confinement as someone’s exotic pet.

We saw this directly while documenting fishing cats in Thailand. A fishing cat, found in a rice field near Khao Sam Roi Yot NP as a cub, has spent 3 years living a small life in a backyard cage, and he is no friendlier for the care. You will hear and see more of that cat’s story as we put together the CAT in WATER documentary.

For now, you can read the whole India fishing cat news story by clicking 3 fishing cat cubs spotted near Karad.