New Delhi: For the first time, the Pallas’ Cat or manul—an elusive wild animal the size of a house cat—has been spotted and captured in camera traps in Arunachal Pradesh. A survey by WWF India and the Arunachal Pradesh Forest Department, funded by the UK government, captured the Pallas’ Cat and five other wildcat species in the rugged terrain of the northeastern state.
“The discovery of Pallas’s Cat in Arunachal Pradesh at nearly 5,000 metres is a powerful reminder of how little we still know about life in the high Himalayas,” said Dr Rishi Kumar Sharma, Head, Science and Conservation, Himalayas Programme, WWF-India, in a press statement.
During this extensive study, for the first time, a camera trap captured a photo of a common leopard at 4,600 metres above sea level, which is the highest elevation at which this animal has ever been seen. Similarly, animals like clouded leopards, marbled cats, and the Himalayan wood owl were also spotted in areas more than 4,000 m above sea level, marking the highest elevation records for these species.
Before Arunachal Pradesh, a camera trap also saw the Pallas’ Cat in Himachal Pradesh in 2024 at around 4,000 m above sea level.
The study was conducted using 136 camera traps in 83 different locations in Arunachal’s West Kameng and Tawang districts. The traps spanned an area of over 2,000 sq km and were planted between July and September 2024. Both districts are high-altitude, remote and close to the Bhutan border. To place the camera traps, teams from WWF and the Arunachal forest department, along with local guides from communities nearby scaled high mountains to reach the regions generally inaccessible to humans.
After placing the traps, the cameras were kept functioning for more than eight months—across the entire winter season and well into the spring of 2025. This was so that the traps would get more time to capture pictures of animals across seasons, in case certain species only appeared during certain weather conditions. According to the press release, this was also one of the most extensive wildlife surveys in Arunachal Pradesh ever.
“That a landscape can support snow leopards, clouded leopards, marbled cats, and now Pallas’s Cat alongside vibrant pastoral traditions speaks of its extraordinary richness and resilience,” the press release said.
Significance of the Pallas’ Cat sighting
Aside from the fact that this was the first time the Pallas’ Cat was spotted in Arunachal Pradesh, it is also important to note where the cat was spotted. The spotting in Arunachal, at a height of 4,992 metres, was very close to the global record of 5,050 metres.
While it is a species of ‘Least Concern’ in the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List, it is a very elusive cat which is generally not visible in camera traps and little is known about it. While we know the cat is carnivorous and populates rocky areas in South and Central Asia, there is not much certainty of which states in India the cat inhabits.
“Seeing the Pallas’s Cat in Arunachal Pradesh is a milestone for wildlife research in the eastern Himalayas,” said Ngilyang Tam, PCCF & CWLW (Wildlife and Biodiversity), Forest Department of Arunachal Pradesh, in a press release. “It reaffirms that the state is important as a global biodiversity hotspot.”
Tam also highlighted the importance of local villagers and guides participating in the camera trapping study, since it goes to show their involvement in protecting the fragile ecosystems of Arunachal Pradesh.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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