Wed 17 Feb 2021 05.30 EST Last modified on Mon 1 Mar 2021 05.35 EST For more than a decade, wildlife biologist Tiasa Adhya has spent many a day in the wetlands and mangroves of the Indian states of West Bengal and Odisha, looking for signs of a rarely seen wild cat – the fishing cat ( ). “Fishing cats are fascinating animals,” she says. “They have co-inhabited riverine deltas and floodplains alongside humans for centuries. Ancient cultures like the Khmer empire show evidence of fishing cats.” As co-founder of the world’s longest-running fishing cat research and conservation project, Kolkata-based Adhya is dedicated to this endangered felid, one of the least-studied and understood wildcats.