Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Parveen Kaswan often shares informational posts on forests, agriculture and animals. In a Twitter thread on Wednesday, he shared a clip from the rescue operation of five jungle cat cubs from an agricultural farm. Mr Kaswan did not disclose the location of the rescue - as is his policy in most cases to avoid undue human interference. The Jungle Cat (Felis chaus) is a protected species, according to the IFS officer.
Sharing a video of the cubs, he wrote: “And all the five jungle cat cubs were saved. Found by farmers during harvesting in a field.” In the clip, we see a close-up of one of the cubs. Then, we are shown the five cubs lying on a field. Farmers and local people are seen making arrangements for the cubs.
Mr Kaswan followed it up with more information. He wrote that the cubs were too small to survive without their mother, so the villagers decided to help reunite the family. The land was “cordoned off” for this purpose, and the “villagers decided to stop harvesting for the time being”.
“Camera traps were established in the area,” wrote Mr Kaswan. Villagers and rescue teams were also stationed near the location at night.
In the next tweet, he shared an image of the mother cat. Mr Kaswan stated that at night the mother came and took all the cubs into the forest. “She started this process in evening and by middle of the night shifted all her cubs to the forest. Without any disturbance,” he added in the caption.
Farmers temporarily stopped harvesting in the area where the cubs were found. By 2 pm things were in place, resulting in an “undisturbed” location for the remaining day and entire night, said Mr Kaswan in the next thread of the tweet.
Mr Kaswan ended his Twitter thread on a funny note by mentioning that the mother had to so “some overtime” while trying to shift the cubs to the forest, but she managed to do so within a few hours.
At the time of writing, the video clip had been viewed over 30,000 times, and liked by more than 1,600 users. A user commented that the incident revealed a “beautiful bonding between our farmers and officials”.
Another user was grateful to the rescue team and every person who was involved in dealing with the situation.
One user called it “lovely work”.
Another user was relieved to see the cubs reunited with their mother. The user commented, “Happy reunion.”
According to Mr Kaswan, Jungle Cat, or Felis chaus, is a protected species.
