About PALLAS’S CAT | UPSC Current Affairs

Description

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Context: The first Pallas's cat sighting on Mount Everest, in the Sagarmatha National Park in Nepal, has been documented

Details:

Well-furred cats from the cold Asian steppes, Pallas’s Cats Otocolobus manulare also called Manul, Steppe Cat or Rock Wildcat.
These small cats have a stocky body with thick, soft fur and an abundant dark, woolly underfur which is double the length of that on the rest of the body.
The colour varies from a light grey to a yellowish buff and russet, with the white tips of the hair producing a frosted appearance.

Distribution:

Manul occur in Central Asia, from the Caspian Sea through Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India to central China, Mongolia and southern Russia.

Habitat:

Their habitat is characterized by an extreme climate with little rainfall, low humidity and a wide range of temperatures.
Their primarily habitat is the steppe grassland regions of Mongolia, China and the Tibetan Plateau.
They have been recorded up to 4,800 m in cold, arid habitats of the dry grassland steppes interspersed with stone outcrops, and in stony desert.
These little predators prefer valleys and rocky areas where they have some cover, and avoid completely open habitats.
They avoid areas of snow cover that exceed 10 cm, and the continuous snow cover of 15-20 cm marks the ecological limit of the species.

habitat fragmentation and degradation due to overgrazing by domestic livestock and conversion to arable land
predation by herding/domestic dogs
mining and infrastructure developments
prey depletion due to government sanctioned poisoning campaigns for pikas and other rodents in some areas; overexploitation of picas for food and their fur in other areas
hunted for its fur in large numbers
demand as exotic pets and used in traditional medicines in Mongolia and Russia
depletion of marmots which are commonly hunted.Their burrows are used by the cats to provide shelter, avoid predation, giving birth and raising young

Conservation:

Since 2012, the Pallas’s Cat Working Group (PCWG) has existed as a network consisting of around 30 members from range countries as well as international experts.
PCWG aims to unite efforts of specialists in Pallas’s cat study and conservation all over its global range.
In 2016, the Pallas’s cat International Conservation Alliance (PICA) was founded. PICA is a collaboration between the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, Nordens Ark Zoo of Sweden and the Snow Leopard Trust, funded by Fondation Segré.
The first range-wide Conservation Strategy was developed together with PCWG and published in 2019.