A story of Scottish wildcats

For cats in the Cairngorms there is some good news and some arguably less good news. For Scottish wildcats, a species that has been on the brink of extinction, these may turn out to be the best of times. A rising number of them—19 last year, another 20 this year if all goes to plan—are being released into the Cairngorms National Park, Britain’s largest. A number of Scottish wildcats have since been caught on camera stalking, chasing and generally looking cute and furry.For other cats, there is less to celebrate. The greatest threat to Scottish wildcats is not that they will be destroyed by violent altercations with wolves or hunters. It is that they will be seduced by the amorous approaches of other, less wild cats. “The biggest threat is… hybridisation,” says Dr Jo Howard-McCombe, a researcher at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. Wildcats and domestic cats are different species but they are capable of interbreeding. Even those wildcats that have been released in the Cairngorms are not wholly wild: their genomes show clear signs of mating with domestic cats.