European wild cat detected 20km south of Prague

Jana

Jana

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Original article.

Exciting and a little sad news - a male cat roadkill found at village near a highway just 20 km south of Prague has been examined and identified as a pure European Wild Cat. This is 100 km away from know distribution range of this species.

However the finder said he found a similar looking roadkill at the same place already last May so this could hint at a potential recolonisation. Genetical test put it within Bavarian wild cat population.

It was found within a valley of a small creek that later joins into river Vltava. And valley of river Vltava around there has plenty of broadleaf woods and very favourable warm microclima (it hosts also a reintroduced easculap snake colony) with little snow in winter.

I add a photo to better show the habitat of the suspected new wild cat population.
xtGC50.jpeg
 
Encouraging news though concerning wild cats in Czech Republic.
Could there potentially be more undetected (given it is the second road kill incident)?
 
Kifaru Bwana said:
Encouraging news though concerning wild cats in Czech Republic.
Could there potentially be more undetected (given it is the second road kill incident)?
Click to expand...

Wild cats are still not much studied in the Czech republic. Only thanks to one interested and stubborn university student who published her master thesis on possible natural return of wild cats into Czech republic (published circa 2015), have this tema resurfaced among Czech scientists. And search has started.

Few weeks ago, a new project financed by EU funds got launched, called "Hledáme kočku, pozor divokou" (=we look for a cat, attention a wild one). It is a joint project of several institutions, including Institute of Vertebrate Biology of Czech Scientific Academy (genetic testing, research), Hnutí Duha Olomouc (field surveys with photo and fur traps, PR) and Zoo Bojnice (building of rescue and breeding station for wild cats of Western Slovakia). The main goal is to search for wild cats within the Czech republic.

The current find near Prague is the first tangible result of this new program. Public campaign of Hnutí Duha resulted in the finder of the cat carcass sending photos and info to the organization who arranged pick up of the carcass and collection of samples for genetical testing.
 
A volunteer has found another cat carcass at highway D4 near town Dobříš (few km away from the last find). It looks like another wild cat but genetic testing is underway to determine if it is pure or a possible hybrid.

A third carcass within 2 years within a fairly small area would hint at a breeding population. But, maybe not in valley of river Vltava, but in neaby hills Brdy (recently decomissioned military training ground)?
Link
 
This time, a presumably wild cat got caught in photo trap in national park Ceske Svycarsko. It is first evidence of this species from that area in more than a century! The park has now placed fur traps (wooden poles scented with valerian) to get hair samples for DNA testing.
Link to pics

It´s so nice to see an extirpated species to make return on its own. If confirmed, already 3 of 4 our existing national parks will have wild cat back.


BTW Czech Academy of Sciences opens a PhD post in "genetics of wild cat in Central Europe" - still few days left to send applications.
 
This is link to the most recent official map of wild cat presence. Look only at the big empty circles - they mean records since year 2010. However even after first look I know at least 2 localities with wild cats documentation that are not included there so dunno how much more places are missed.

The only places with really proved breeding records so far I know are military training ground of Doupovské hory and Český les CHKO - both produced pics of kittens. But considering there is proven breeding for example just 1km behind Slovak border or just behind German borden on the very western tip of the country we might safely consider them parts of breeding population as well. Also Šumava mountains has a lot of photos over last +10 years so I guess they must breed there too, we just miss confirmation yet. Found carcases around Dobříš (central Bohemia) were so far all adult males so who knows status there - they might be strays from Šumava (100 km in straight line away - is that even possible?) or they come from some still unknown place nearby.

Wild cat situation is sort of dynamic. While they are very rare they also seem to pup up in unexpected places in last years. And even if a carcass gets DNA tested and confirmed, it´s hard to access status in that area just based on 1 random adult animal.

Czechia gets obviously wild cats from 2 sources. 1 is Slovak Carpathians. Here it looks sort of worrying - recent analysis found that 15% of cats in Strážovské Vrchy are hybrids, while analysis from more north area (Javorníky) found no hybrids. 2 is Germany. Cats come both from Bavaria and Saxony more recently. Wild cat makes a big return in Germany - their population has strong growth and might even soon reach western Poland. My country just rides on that wave too getting dispersing animals - how many will be able to settle and start breeding groups is a question. Wild cats so far tested in western part of Czechia have yielded only 3,5% of hybrids so we can say German wild cats we get are pretty pure.

I try to do my little piece too - volunteering online for small cat shelter in area not far from Šumava where wild cats might return in theory soon (if they are not already in that area). The more stray kittens get caught, spayed and adopted indoors the smaller risk of future hybridisation.
 
Another detection of wild cat in new area - this time in CHKO Krivoklatsko. It´s protected area 20 km west of Prague. Two pics from photo trap within 3 months. A net of photo traps to detect wild cats got installed there 3 years ago and these are first positive results. Last wild cat seen in this area was shot in year 1780!

Source is AOPK

Wild cat distribution is changing. Species range limit is slowly moving east. Exciting to follow it live.

This occurence could help to turn CHKO Krivoklatsko into NP (national park) with much higher level of nature protection. Our government wants to create a new NP. But locals living in villages there as well as large landowners are fighting against it. Lets see who wins.
 
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