The Scottish Wildcat

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The Scottish Wildcat

Written by Neil

Thursday, 15 January 2009

Culloden, the last battle fought on Scottish (and indeed British) soil took place on Drumossie Moor, just outside Inverness, in April 1746. That tragic battle signified the end of the Highland way of life for ever, as Highlanders were relentlessly pursued and persecuted for years afterwards. But a similar battle is being fought right now as the Wildcat, the ancient symbol of many Highland clans, struggles for its very existence in the remotest areas of Scotland.

Just before Christmas, while catching up on reading magazines that I’d put to one side, I came across an article in the latest FAB Journal by Steve Piper, a wildlife film director who had recently made a documentary called “Last of the Scottish Wildcats”. I was shocked to learn that the Wildcat is in serious danger of extinction within as little as 10 years, if no action is taken; I had no idea that the situation was as serious. DNA analysis has shown that there are now only 400 or so true Wildcats remaining in Scotland and numbers are decreasing year by year.

Amazingly, it has been shown that every domestic cat can trace its ancestry back to one of five female Asian wildcats living around 130,000 years ago in the Middle East. The Egyptians, commonly credited with domestication of the cat, only added African wildcat into the mix a mere 5,000 or so years ago. The feline family tree that traces back to the Middle East revealed a unique genetic marker, the “domestic cat” gene. This marker is found in every domestic cat, and in every Wildcat/domestic hybrid – but crucially, pure Scottish Wildcats do not have it. Now that the marker can be traced, it will be easier for researchers to conclusively identify pure Wildcats, and this should help with captive breeding programmes.

It is hybridisation that has been one of the main factors in the decline of the Wildcat. With the advent of industrialisation and destruction of their natural habitat, Wildcats quickly began to breed with domestic cats – unluckily for them, this union does produce fertile offspring so the pollution of the gene pool had begun. Another enemy that Wildcats had to face from the mid-1800s onwards was of course the human race – gamekeepers protecting their grouse and other game, and farmers protecting their livestock. Snares are also a particularly nasty hazard to all animals including Wildcats, and sadly these are still legal. However the First World War helped somewhat in that many gamekeepers and farmers were called up, so for a while the Wildcats appeared to recover, and when they were given official protected status in the late 1980s the government declared they were safe, with around 5000 individuals in the wild. How wrong they were proved to be though, when DNA analysis revealed the true situation – many of the “Wildcats” were in fact hybrids. (there are also several visual features that distinguish a Wildcat from a hybrid). Yet another reason why pet cats should be neutered – breeders can take a responsible stance on this when selling their kittens, either by having them neutered prior to sale, or insisting on proof of neutering by a certain age. Control of feral cat populations by neutering will also help the Wildcat. Vaccination of pet and feral cats is also important because disease is rare in Wildcat populations, therefore they have minimal defences – one encounter with a flu-infected feral cat could decimate them still further.

The Scottish Wildcat is so named (rather than “British”) because it is a truly unique species, and its Latin name is Felis silvestris grampia (describing one of its habitats in the Grampian mountains). It has evolved from the European Wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris), a smaller, mainly forest dwelling animal, and has become a superb predator, totally adapted to its environment and famously the only wild animal that can never be tamed by human hand. This supreme adaptation to environment is the reason why it has survived in Scotland for at least 2 million years, long outlasting the mammoth, bear and lion. However, there are many “myths” about Wildcats – the most ludicrous being that they are man-killers. Even very recently (just before Christmas in fact) there was a story reported by the BBC of a “large cat, possibly a Wildcat” attacking a woman in the Highlands as she went to put something in her dustbin. Scaremongering like this does nothing to help the Wildcat’s cause. Wildcats are by nature very shy and would never deliberately attack a human unless physically threatened – their main prey is rabbit.

The primary key to preventing the disaster of extinction is raising of public awareness, and this is what the Scottish Wildcat Association is aiming to do. The SWA was set up in 2008 and is hoping to raise funds and liaise with other organisations involved in research crucial to the future of the Wildcat in Scotland. They hope to have Charity status confirmed early in 2009, when they will be able to accept members and donations. I strongly recommend everyone to visit the SWA’s website at www.scottishwildcats.co.uk and to consider becoming a member when this is possible. You can download SWA banners for your own websites – another way to spread the word.

10 years isn’t long – time is rapidly running out for our unique native cat.

© Naomi Johnson December 2008

Photographs courtesy Scottish Wildcat Association

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