SAFEGUARD SRI LANKA'S OVERLOOKED SMALL WILD CATS

While the Sri Lankan Leopard rightly commands global attention, three of the country's three wild cat species quietly live on the margins of public awareness - and increasingly, on the margins of survival.

- 

Recognising this critical conservation gap, the Wildlife & Nature Protection Society (WNPS), in partnership with Small Cat Advocacy and Research (SCAR) and with the support of Classic Wild, has launched a landmark, national-scale conservation initiative: The Small Wild Cats Project.

The project places a long-overdue spotlight on Sri Lanka's three lesser-known wild cats:

• Fishing Cat (Handun Diviya / Minpiti Punei)

• Jungle Cat (Wal Balala / Kattil Punei)

• Rusty-spotted Cat (Kola Diviya / Thurumpan Punei) — the smallest wild cat in the world

Although small in size, these species play a disproportionately large role in maintaining healthy ecosystems — regulating rodent populations, signalling wetland and forest health, and helping sustain balanced agricultural landscapes. Yet, compared to the Leopard, they remain among Sri Lanka's least studied and least protected mammals.

As Sri Lanka's oldest conservation organisation, WNPS has long championed species and ecosystems that fall outside the popular narrative from overlooked habitats to underrepresented wildlife. SCAR is a leading force in research focused, science led conservation, generating ecological data, strengthening data driven decision making, and advancing the protection of Sri Lanka's small wild cats and the environments they occupy.

The Small Wild Cats Project reflects the shared ethos of both organisations through conservation guided by science, strengthened by community engagement, and supported by evidence-based advocacy.

This initiative reinforces the commitment of WNPS and SCAR to broaden conservation attention beyond flagship species, and towards the lesser known custodians of ecosystem health whose declines often goes unnoticed until it is too late.