Wetland Loss and the Fishing Cat: When Ecosystems Collapse
Fishing cats, wetland loss, and the hidden infrastructure of resilience reveal how biodiversity decline is inseparable from environmental systems change. This article uses the fishing cat as an indicator of wetland degradation, showing how marshes, mangroves, floodplains, tidal creeks, and aquatic food webs support both wildlife and human communities. It examines wetland loss as a crisis of hydrology, water quality, carbon storage, fisheries, coastal protection, habitat connectivity, and natural infrastructure. As wetlands are drained, polluted, fragmented, or converted for development and aquaculture, fishing cats lose habitat while people lose flood buffers, water filtration, storm protection, and ecological security. The article argues that protecting fishing cats is not only species conservation; it is part of a broader environmental science strategy to defend wetlands as living systems that sustain resilience.