Trail Cam Captures Wild Cat Thought to Be Extinct in Pakistan

A beautiful conservation moment happened earlier this year thanks to some trail cameras set up in Pakistan’s Kirthar National Park. A trail cam captured a very rare sand cat (Felis margarita) in the park. According to the IUCN, this wild-cat species was thought to be “possibly extinct” in Pakistan, but the trail-cam images prove that it’s not.

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Even more exciting, alongside proof of a sand cat wandering around Kirthar National Park, conservationists at the Indus Fishing Cat Project (IFCP) announced a trail-cam sighting of a second rare wild cat—an Asiatic caracal (Caracal caracal schimitzi).

[RELATED: Trail Cam Snaps Rare ‘Family Portrait’ of Endangered Bandicoots]

Zafeer Ahmed Shaikh, director of the Indus Fishing Cat Project, told Mongabay that the trail-cam photos of the latter wild cat offer “very rare visual evidence of the once widespread but now rapidly declining species.”

See the trail-cam images of the wild cat scientists thought was extinct in Pakistan (and the rare Asiatic caracal) here:

Header stock image of a sand cat by ippei kanno/Getty Images

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