“As a young boy, I was obsessed with endangered species and the extinct species that men killed off. Biology was the subject in school that I was most incredibly passionate about.”
There is a glimmer of hope, however. A new program underway in the UK hopes to breed wildcats in captivity and reintroduce them into the wild, largely in England and Wales, where they haven’t been seen for 150 years. Wildcats have not been recorded in southern England since the 16th century, but interestingly several wildlife trusts have identified parts of rural Devon and Cornwall as being ideally suited habitat for the wild cats.
This is no overnight fix but rather a program that even its most ardent supporters say will take years to realize. The program is patterned after a similar program in Switzerland that has successfully reintroduced European wildcats to Bavaria. That program took 20 years. Some 700 wildcats were successfully released into German forests from an initial captive population of 100 animals.
The UK may yet point the way for the future of the Scottish wildcat.
“Scotland and England may sometimes be rivals, but by geography, we are also neighbours. By history, allies. By economic, partners. And by fate and fortune, comrades, friends and family.”
— Douglas Alexander.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXPk0XHiuw8
“There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats,” Albert Schweitzer famously said — but that hasn’t saved the wildcat from persecution in Scotland and the UK. “Rescued Scottish wildcat kittens among last of their kind,” National Geographic reported, in a video posted on YouTube — last October.
The Scottish wildcat evolved from a population of European wildcats which became isolated by the English Channel some 9,000 years ago. They’re the largest of the wildcat family, and can grow to twice the size of your average couch moggy. Their fur is thicker and is marked by distinctive solid black and brown stripes, with a big banded tail.
Though adaptable to varied habitats, from moors and wetlands to mixed woodland and rural farmland, Scottish wildcats in serious trouble. Research suggests the only pure wildcats left — no more than 400 individuals in all — habituate a remote corner of the West Highlands.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has judged the remaining wild population to be no longer viable, because of a high degree of inbreeding with domestic cats.