As the winter draws nearer in the Highlands of Scotland and the warm summer mornings are replaced with a frosty chill, we enter a key part of the year for Scottish Wildcat Action. Not only will monitoring and trapping efforts become more intensive, but come January and February the breeding season for wildcats will be upon us. This of course plays a big part in the conservation breeding programme.
Ensuring that valuable pairs of wildcats are together in time will increase the chances of wildcat kittens come early spring. One significant development that took place over the summer was that I took over the coordination of the European studbook for the Scottish wildcat. This puts us in a position to manage the UK population of captive Scottish wildcats in a way that preserves the best genetic diversity within the population. To do this I work closely with our geneticists at RZSS’s Wildgenes lab at the Zoo, who are analysing genetic samples to determine whether animals are pure wildcats or a mixture of wildcat and domestic cat. Using these modern scientific techniques gives us the best chance of finding suitable wildcats that will act as the foundation for a robust and viable captive population, which in turn can be used for releases into the wild in the future.
As the number of landowners and private estates we are working with increases – and Scottish Wildcat Action’s presence across the north, east, south and west of Scotland continues to grow – it is clear to see that this ambitious and diverse approach to saving the Scottish wildcat is moving in the right direction.
It is also important to highlight that the work and support of Scottish Wildcat Action is not restricted to Scotland. To ensure that we give ourselves the best chance of saving the Scottish wildcat we have been collaborating with colleagues and organisations from across the world that specialise in cat conservation. These additional skills in global conservation management, post-release monitoring and conservation breeding coupled with their opinions and networks are vital to the long-term security of the species.
During September I attended the annual conference of the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) in Wroclaw, Poland. During this conference of over 700 delegates, I was able to give presentations on Scottish Wildcat Action and our role with conservation breeding for release. This gave me the chance to promote the project and to raise the profile of this species. These presentations – given to the EAZA reintroduction and translocation group and the EAZA felid taxon advisory group – were not only well received but allowed other countries and projects to see what could be one of the first ‘models’ for small cat conservation and reintroduction. I have now had enquiries from colleagues in Taiwan and Sri Lanka regarding our work with Scottish Wildcat Action and how it could be a model project for their native threatened small cat species.
There will of course be challenges throughout the five year action plan, but this is the same for all conservation projects across the globe. Scottish Wildcat Action is the only national project for wildcat conservation but is also a statement that says we care enough about Scottish wildcats to do everything in our power to save them. As long as we prepare ourselves for future challenges and remember that the work we are doing is the best hope for Scottish wildcats then we can and will succeed.
David
David Barclay
RZSS Cat Conservation Project Officer