Finding fantastic beasts: A camera-trapping story from our forgotten forests 

In 2018, we led a small camera-trap survey in a 2.5 square-kilometre national park of northeast Bangladesh. What we observed amazed us. Nearly 600 nights of the survey yielded 17 different mammal sightings, including 10 carnivores. 

The study revealed that the Asiatic wild dog – a globally Endangered apex predator with a wild population of only 2,215 known mature individuals – visits the park frequently.

One of the smallest countries in Asia, Bangladesh is the habitat of 127 different species of mammals. Of these, 21 were newly added during the latest Red List assessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). 

These discoveries come from a country that has less than 7 percent natural forest coverage and a population density of over 1,000 people per square kilometre.

Even more surprisingly, Bangladesh boasts nearly half of the entire carnivore diversity (a subsect of the mammalian species) in the Indian subcontinent. The 28 extant carnivore mammals represent six different terrestrial families: Viverridae (six species), Felidae (eight species), Herpestidae (three species), Canidae (three species), Ursidae (two species), and Mustelidae (six species). 

My decision to focus my research on the country's smaller carnivores came with a certain stigma that has been around for years. Yet, while these species may be less charismatic than larger iconic species like the tiger, striped hyena, Indian grey wolf, or bears, I have realised that working to save lesser-known species has a nobility unto itself and has helped me to become a better scientist.

The study site where I conduct research on small carnivores holds 71 herps (reptile and amphibian) species, some of which the IUCN Red List only recently classified as Critically Endangered on a global scale. These findings, published just last year in the journal 'Check List', remind us how little we know of our eastern forests.

The forests of northeastern Bangladesh provide a home for all of the country's mammals. Even sightings of tigers, now absent in the region, were reported there back in the 1990s. These semi-evergreen, undulating hilly swaths, hold six reserves and comprise 191 square kilometres of natural forests along the border between India and Bangladesh. 

How small carnivores are faring in this challenging landscape has been an enigma to biologists. After the reappearance of the Indian Grey Wolf in Bangladesh after 70 years – that I investigated in 2019 – this question took a paradoxical turn. 

While the country's carnivores seem to appear frequently in stories told between colleagues, they remain more elusive in the wild – difficult to understand and never surveyed. Like a moth to a flame, I was drawn to find more answers.

Bangladesh's forest wildlife faces various threats, including retaliatory killings, deforestation and 'patch effects'—where habitats are fragmented into isolated areas, or 'patches', that restrict species dispersal for foraging and/or breeding. 

Despite this, much of the wildlife seems to be surviving in these forests with unbelievable resilience. For example, this year, some colleagues of mine discovered a new species of frog there. What else could be residing there? What is living in the streams of these riparian, rain-fed semi-evergreens? 

My work in these ecologically uncharted forests led to a Future Conservationist Award from the Conservation Leadership Programme (CLP). The timing of this grant was opportune. 

In August 2020, I received feedback on a manuscript reviewing research on the mammalian carnivores of Bangladesh. One reviewer, who had forwarded the manuscript to one of his students to do the review for him, landed an unexpected blow, observing, "Small carnivores are rarely a subject of research, usually studied within the large-scale landscape-level projects." I felt sad, sensing the imposter syndrome creeping in. 

But, the CLP grant was a game-changer. The course gave me a deeper grounding in the science underpinning the research project and has connected me to a group of young, dedicated researchers and conservationists from all over the world. 

Many of them are also working on species poorly known to the outside world that are rare and often very secretive. 

Support from my peers gave me the confidence to successfully defend the manuscript. It is now published and I am continuing my research in three of the six northeastern forest reserves of Bangladesh. While running systematic camera-trap surveys here, I will try to shine a spotlight on the lesser-known carnivores, employing unique approaches. 

In 2021, for about 10 months, we ran a full-fledged camera-trapping survey in 100 sq km of forests of northeast Bangladesh. The result was mind-blowing: We found otters, golden cats and hog badgers among 16 other carnivore mammals. 

The otters and badgers of northeast forests were previously unknown. The golden cat popped up from a new location. We found an extremely rare rodent called the brush-tailed porcupine. We noted traces of the Asiatic black bear and the Himalayan serow, a cryptic goat-antelope. 

In total, we found 33 mammals, 41 bird species, and 4 reptile species. Of which, 4 are critically endangered, 10 endangered, 7 vulnerable, and 7 are near-extinction in Bangladesh according to IUCN. 

In 2019, when I had been planning for my first ever camera-trapping run, I was discouraged by a British PhD holder. "You do not even find deer in these reserves," he remained unconvinced by my perspective. 

Ironically, as you are reading this story, these findings are being featured in a conference of conservation science being organised by the University of Cambridge. 

My ultimate goal is to give these uncharted northeast forest reserves the conservationist attention they deserve. In the coming years, I dream of a community of carnivore ecologists emerging from Bangladesh. 

I hope that every form of wildlife will be treated with equal importance. Tell me, who wants a forest full of only tigers? Beauty lies in the diversity of these fantastic beasts.