Highland Wildlife Park Highland wildlife park 2013

kiang said:
Hopefully with an expanding of the breeding programme for the Scottish wildcats there may be a possibilty of nearing a reintroduction phase of the project.
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Does anyone know approximately how many Scottish Wildcats they currently have?
 
Pertinax said:
Does anyone know approximately how many Scottish Wildcats they currently have?
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I'd need to find the Annual report - but it was quite a few!

The Pine marten was quite old, and had been on it's own for a while, so I'm a bit surprised they moved it.
 
Davef68 said:
I'd need to find the Annual report - but it was quite a few!

The Pine marten was quite old, and had been on it's own for a while, so I'm a bit surprised they moved it.
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they have three, after four moved down to Edinburgh.

On another note, the wolverine enclosure has been built and is looking amazing.
 
When I was at highlands a while ago (spring time just before the wolverines moved) at the wildcat feed the keeper said they were not going to replace the pine marten when it died (I think she said as it wasn't a conservation/breeding priority for them). I agree it made a good exhibit, especially at the feed, so I will miss it.

At the time of my visit they had 1 breeding pair of wildcats on show (separated at the time), having just got rid of a male as a suspected hybrid (not sure if he was moved on or died)-and the 4 kits now moved to Edinburgh, also suspected hybrids (again stated at the feed) and I think they may even have been neutered/spayed prior to the move, but not sure about that last bit.
 
That total more or less tallies with what I was told in July 2012.
 
Davef68 said:
Those are the ones on-show - they have a few others in the off-show area. As of 31/12/12, they had 7 males and 4 females - 4 of those males will be the ones that have gone to Edinburgh (The late 2012 litter).
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Thanks. My point in asking was to ascertain whether they have a large enough stock to get involved with any planned reintroduction schemes. With around 3.4 animals(plus any more born this year) I'd say they certainly don't have yet.

Also interesting to know that not all of their wildcats are considered pure- I thought that they were. But it seems they are still weeding out hybrids.
 
Pertinax said:
Also interesting to know that not all of their wildcats are considered pure- I thought that they were. But it seems they are still weeding out hybrids.
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They were all considered pure, but late last year doubt was cast on one of the adult males; although his hybrid status could not be proven either way, the purity of the wildcat genepool is important enough that it is necessary to act as if he - and thus his offspring -was impure.

Not sure which of the males is the individual concerned, but I know that one or two of the HWP wildcats were rescued from the wild - if the male concerned was rescued in an area which has since been demonstrated to contain hybrid contamination, this could well be the cause of the doubt.
 
This might give some indication of the issue:

Highland Tiger - The Scottish Wildcat


14 December 2012
During the latter part of each year, The Highland Wildlife Park, Kingussie, gets the occasional call regarding an abandoned wildcat kitten. These kittens are generally ones that are born late in the season, usually late July to early August, probably due to the female losing a litter earlier in the year. As the species is generally a strictly seasonal breeder due to the harsh winter climate in the Highlands, these late litters seem to be abandoned with greater frequency than ones born in the spring. Rearing kittens is obviously quite taxing for the mother as she still needs to hunt and feed her offspring, and as she will need to gain weight to see herself through the winter, she may be physiologically forced to make a decision to protect her life at the expense of her kittens. The vast majority of these kittens prove to be hybrids and so are of little value to the captive breeding programme, however, there is the odd exception.

In late October the Park was contacted by the Strathbogie Veterinary Centre about an abandoned kitten that had found its way to their veterinary centre in Huntly, Aberdeenshire. It was clearly tabby marked with a ringed tail, but when they are only a few weeks old, it is actually quite difficult to predict how they will look when mature. He was also a pretty feisty individual. One of the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland's geneticists from the Wildgenes laboratory has developed a rapid genetic test that looks at three distinct attributes to give us a reasonable indication of the purity, or not, of a particular cat.

Douglas Richardson from the Highland Wildlife Park said "The test is not definitive, but until we get such a test, this is a good guide. We have also applied this three-way test to our resident cats at the Highland Wildlife Park, and it came as no surprise that the majority of our “wildcats” proved to be of hybrid origin to one degree or another; the same is very likely true for the majority of the captive population within the UK. But this latest kitten, who came with the name Zak, passed all three tests with flying colours."

Zak is now being reared in an off-exhibit area of the Park, and due to his age he is being fed domestic kitten food and has a heat lamp to nestle under. He is still a little ball of fire, which given his size is more amusing than scary, but we hope that he will come to be a new founder breeding male for the captive population.
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http://www.highlandtiger.com/latest_news.asp

They also move the populations around - looking back over previous inventories, they have had animals moving in and out every year.
 
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PS, looks like I was slightly wrong about the gender of the kittens - from the HWP site:

We currently have three Scottish wildcats in our collection, two males and one female. In February 2013 three males and one female moved down to Edinburgh Zoo.

In August 2013 we welcomed the birth of two wildcat kittens into our collection. However it will be a few weeks before they will venture out of their den.
- See more at: Highland Wildlife Park ?
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Davef68 said:
This might give some indication of the issue:
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Thanks for posting. I note Doug Richardson is quoted here as saying that the recent '3 factors' testings have indicated their other cats are all(?) hybrids to some degree or other. I was under the impression they were pure- obviously they were too until recently.

This was only written nine months ago so must pretty much represent the current situation. Now it seems the new kitten(now reaching maturity presumably) will be used to found a new purer strain for them. It pretty much takes them back to square one though.:(
 
The recent births (another late litter, presumably to the same female as last year) are interesting if they suspect hybridisation - perhaps this female is the 'least hybrid' they have. I suspect the roots of hybridisation go a long way back in the SWC population.
 
Davef68 said:
The recent births (another late litter, presumably to the same female as last year) are interesting if they suspect hybridisation - perhaps this female is the 'least hybrid' they have. I suspect the roots of hybridisation go a long way back in the SWC population.
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Well, the above quote states the majority of their wildcats appeared to be impure, not that all of them were - so it is possible the female, and possibly the male she has bred with this time, is pure.
 
Davef68 said:
I suspect the roots of hybridisation go a long way back in the SWC population.
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I feel sure they do. It must be very hard indeed to acquire pure or untainted stock for captive breeding. From the above it seems like with the recent transfers to Edinburgh, that HWP currently only have a total 2.1 (of which 1.0 is the recent hopefully pure'kitten') plus 2 kittens born there this year.
 
They don't usually list the offshow animals on the website. The off-show location is pretty obvious, though no-one can access it to take pictures :-)
 
Davef68 said:
They don't usually list the offshow animals on the website. The off-show location is pretty obvious, though no-one can access it to take pictures :-)
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I'm not clear whether the mention 'in our collection' means those on display or the total at HWP, both on and offshow. :confused:
 
Lifted from the blog today, just to add more confusion to the issue of wildcat numbers:

Up at the Highland Wildlife Park there has been a new arrival of a different kind, with a new male yak arriving from Auchingarrich Wildlife Centre in Perthshire. He has been described by the keepers as a very calm, placid fellow and he will spend a few weeks in quarantine before joining our six other yaks. The Park’s two Arctic foxes have also moved back into their newly revamped enclosure and seem to be enjoying exploring their new home. Finally, if visitors are patient they may just spot the two wildcat kittens born to our female Betidh a couple of weeks ago as they are just starting to come out of their nest box and explore their enclosure.
 
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