Scottish Wildcat

adrian1963

adrian1963

Well-Known Member
I know a few British zoo's have some Scottish Wildcats in them. I was just wondering if anyone knows if there are any Scottish Wildcats in collections outside the UK.
As this being the only real UK Big Cat and has a status as endangered I was wondering if other collections outside the UK were trying to help with breeding them as we in the UK do for other Big Cats.
 
We in Europe(outside UK) don't have Scottish wild cat, we have are own European wild cat, which we care about and try to protect.
 
I'm only going by what the RSPCA & WWF have stated, but I wouldn't call it a big cat either.
Any information on outside the UK breeding or outside UK collection with them in would help
many thanks in advance
 
Lintworm I didn't mean any offence when I said outside the UK what I meant was (any country in Europe but not the UK) but I thought outside UK was shorter sorry if I affended didn't mean too
I understand were your coming from on protecting the European wild cat it would be interesting to know if any UK zoo/parks or private collections have any or are breeding as most instatutes in the UK seen only to be interested in the big named cats to intice the public through the turn styles.
 
RSCPA and WWF will be trying to get some publicity - it's not a big cat. Big cats are members of the genus Panthera - so Lion, Tiger, (Common) Leopard and Jaguar; possibly also Snow Leopard depending on which study you believe.

My experience is as lintworm says - other European zoos concentrate on Felis sylvestris sylvestris, the European Wildcat (with which F. s. grampia may be synonymous - again depending who you ask!).
 
Sorry may have misunderstood the meaning of RSPCA and WWF I think as the clip that I read this from staes early that it's a true British wild cat and then there are references from the the big cat family my mistake sorry but I'm still trying to find out about the breeding of now both the Scottish and European Wildcats anyone help please
 
As far as I'm aware, there are no Scottish Wildcats outside of the UK.

Zootierliste.de lists none outside England and Scotland. ZootierlisteHomepage


Zootierliste.de also lists 109 European collections with European Wildcats (66 in Germany alone). None are in the British Isles. ZootierlisteHomepage
 
Many thanks for that Maguari but I wonder if there are private collections out there that have one or both
 
@Adrian, I don't think so, with the Natura 2000 law in the EU, it is almost impossible to keep native animals that are on the IUCN european red list in a private collection.

And I think that there haven't been any scottish wildcats kept/imported outside the UK.
 
Hi Adrian,

Last i heard.....San Diego Zoo hold a female Scottish wildcat.
Not sure if they still do, but they did.

best wishes,
Amur
 
Amur said:
Hi Adrian,

Last i heard.....San Diego Zoo hold a female Scottish wildcat.
Not sure if they still do, but they did.

best wishes,
Amur
Click to expand...

That surprised me, but ISIS agrees. Of course, ISIS is not always an infallible source! Any Southern Californians able to confirm?
 
Good find - so they seem to have had them at some point at least.
 
San Diego Zoo bred the Scottish Wildcat several times in the early 1980s. The founder pair of animals was arrived from Wildlife Breeding Centre near Harpenden in Hertfordshire, England.
 
If these are phenotype based estimates I suspect it's already too late. I have been told that all of the captive "Scottish" Wild Cats are hybrids.
We realy don't have a leg to stand on when preaching to other countries to conserve their carnivores.
 
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