New group aims to save the Scots wildcat from extinction

NEIL MACPHAIL – PRESS AND JOURNAL

A NEW charity has been launched to help save the Scottish wildcat from impending extinction.

The Scottish Wildcat Association (SWA) will champion the cause of Britain’s rarest mammal and last wild feline, amid fears that with less than 400 left in the wild, extinction could be just five years away. The predator has been resident in Britain for at least 2million years and have shared space with everything from woolly mammoths to cave lions and survived entire ice ages.

But more recently they have fallen foul of human persecution, urban development and, increasingly, hybridisation with domestic feral cats bringing numbers crashing down.

In 2004, scientists concluded that around 400 pure wildcats remained in the Highlands and developed an action plan to save them.

SWA trustee Steve Piper said yesterday that five years later no apparent progress has been made and numbers seem to be falling even lower, and he criticised Scottish Natural Heritage.

He said: “They seem to be paralysed by inertia and keen to blame others for it, suggesting in the press last week that shooting estates had sabotaged their efforts.

“There has been a lot of talk and half-hearted gestures like the recent wildcat population survey; it was so poorly funded the ecologists were left with nothing to work with. It was impossible to achieve the detail needed and everyone knew it.”

An SNH spokesman said yesterday they were supporting a range of conservation work on behalf of the Scottish wildcat. They have allocated £60,000 to run the Scottish Wildcat survey, and £30,000 was spent on a study to conclusively and accurately identify Scottish wildcats. Last year £40,000 was spent on the ground in conservation work

He added: “This year we have just announced a £60,000 commitment to fund the first Scottish wildcat officer. The new officer will work with partner organisations, landowners and managers and conservation groups to pioneer initiatives which help safeguard surviving wildcat populations and create favourable conditions for the species to thrive in future.”

The new post, funded for three years, is based in the heart of wildcat country in the Cairngorms National Park where the largest concentration of the species is believed to live.

SWA was founded by Mr Piper, a filmmaker who shot the acclaimed documentary Last of the Scottish Wildcats.

It is in partnership with charities including Advocates for Animals, Scottish Badgers and the International Otter Survival Fund to ban snares in Scotland.

This has drawn widespread public support but strong opposition from many in rural areas who argue that snares are a cheap and essential pest control device.

Scottish walkers asked to report wildcat sightings as numbers fall

 Mark Hughes – Independent

They were once widespread throughout the forests of the United Kingdom, fierce, feline creatures rumoured by some to be man-eating predators and revered by others as quasi-mythical beings harbouring the malevolent spirits of witches. But decades of relentless hunting took their toll on the population of the wildcat, so that by the mid-19th century they were declared extinct in England and Wales.

Now, conservationists are launching the first population survey in more than 20 years to discover whether the dwindling numbers of Scottish wildcats are suffering a similar fate.

Walkers will be asked to keep an eye out for the beasts after scientists said they feared they were nearing extinction in the one part of the UK where gamekeepers had originally failed to eradicate them.

Calling for members of the public to report sightings of wildcats in forests and other remote areas, Scottish National Heritage hopes the population survey will help to fix the numbers. It estimates that fewer than 400 of the animals exist in the country.

The survey will aim to establish the size and distribution of Felis silvestris grampia, the Scottish wildcat, and to draw conclusions about the plight of Britain’s last large mammal predator.

And it could lead to measures including voluntary neutering of domestic cats to prevent them from interbreeding with wildcats in areas where the species is most at risk.

Ro Scott, policy and advisory officer at Scottish National Heritage, said the public would be asked to pay attention to markings on cats seen in the wild and to report these to its officers, along with the location of sightings and video footage or photographs.

She said: “We want to involve as many members of the public as possible who are out and about in areas where they might come across wildcats. We will be asking them to fill in a short questionnaire asking what they have seen.”

The typical British wildcat is similar in appearance to a domestic cat. However, wildcats are larger with a wider face and jaw and have well-defined brown and black stripes and a bushy tail.

The twin perils of persecution and disease led to a dramatic reduction in the numbers of wildcats and, by the 1860s, the species was declared extinct in England and Wales.

Numbers also fell in Scotland but sightings in the north of the country, particularly in the Highlands, ensured that they were never said to be extinct. The species is listed as vulnerable.