Wildcats – Ray Collier – Wildlife in the North

Scottish WildcatOne of the main on-going controversies, as far as wildlife is concerned, is the affect domestic/feral cats have on wildlife. Many people believe that the threat to wildlife is so great that the British Trust for Ornithology produced a leaflet some time ago entitled “Cats and garden birds”. This was aimed at guiding people about possible threats from cats and the ways you can plan, for example in feeding garden birds, to offset their impact. The leaflet was alarming to say the least as studies have shown that in the UK as a whole cats may be responsible for killing as many as 275 million animals every year. This includes not only birds but small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and even butterflies. It is also thought that of these cats kill some 55 million birds in Britain every year. Even if you think these figures are an exaggeration it is still a great deal of wildlife. All this was put into perspective for me a few weeks ago when I watched a feral cat stalk a bird in my garden just as it was getting light . The cat pounced and then struggled to take its prey off to some bushes to devour it at will. The bird was a drake mandarin and I found the remains of the carcase the next day.

At the other end of the scale, cat lovers say this is a total exaggeration and in any case any birds taken are surplus to requirements and would have died anyway. These people also fit bells to collars on the cats and believe this stops them taking any wildlife. The two sides of the argument will be ongoing for a long time but there is one irrefutable problem over domestic cats. This is their relationship with the true wildcat as the hybridisation between the domestic/feral cat and the wildcat is now, and has been for many years, threatening the true wildcat with extinction. To put this into perspective, some people think that the situation is now so bad there may be less than a hundred, some even quote forty, true wildcats left in the wild. It depends which figures you look at but whichever figures you believe the wildcat may well be become extinct in just a few years. Some pessimists believe it is already extinct in the wild. The photograph shows a true wildcat – is it really heading for extinction and, if so, what can we do to help?

Needless to say in the same way as conservationists have rallied to the cause of the red squirrel, beaver, red kite and sea eagle so the wildcat has drawn the attention of many people and many bodies. Indeed at the moment I find it difficult to see if there is one central body that is coordinating all the valiant efforts. Some individuals have wildcats and a number of organisations have breeding programmes, although sometimes it is difficult to understand just what that means. A breeding programme should not be there to show the public what a wildcat looks like but to satisfactorily release any offspring into the wild. However, there in lies the problems, as to release any true wildcats into the wild you need to know whether or not here are any domestic/feral cats in the areas. If there are and they can mate then there is little point in the releasing the true wildcats as they will just hybridise.
This has all come to the head again because the true wildcats at the Highland Wildlife Park at Kingussie has just has a litter of three wildcats. Now when and where will they be released?

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