The Highland Tiger is making a welcome return to Scotland

Thanks to PTES supporters, Saving Wildcats is seeing the Highland tiger return to Scotland. The Conservation Breeding and Release Centre (CBRC) had another successful year in 2024, with 16 kittens born and prepared for life in the wild. Nine wildcats were released into the Cairngorms National Park last summer, bringing the total released to 28 since 2023.

Monitoring the welfare of wild-living wildcats

The Saving Wildcats team use a variety of techniques to monitor wildcats in the wild including GPS-radio collars, a substantial network of camera traps, sightings and scat collection. General monitoring across the release site has shown they prefer edge habitat, spending their time hunting in small areas of native woodland, rough grassland and scrub.

Now that many of the released wildcats have established territories and are behaving a little more predictably, the team have been removing their collars because the trail cameras can gather sufficient data without them. They are now using the collars to track a smaller number of key individuals.

The collars have provided critical data informing the project of key events in the wildcat’s lives. For instance, when the female wildcats showed a sudden shift to daytime activity during the breeding season, as opposed to at dawn and dusk, this indicated that they may have given birth. Imagine the team’s excitement when this incredible milestone was later confirmed on the trail cameras! Through detailed monitoring of the region, the team eventually managed to track a total of nine litters born during the spring and early summer of 2024 – 24 kittens in total. This was an encouraging sign that breeding for release efforts are succeeding. Genetic analysis will be conducted soon to determine paternity.

Learning more about wildcat behaviour in the Cairngorms Connect Landscape

Unfortunately, adverse weather and a decline in vole populations led to a pause of further releases in 2024. Life in the wild is incredibly challenging and the Saving Wildcats field team closely monitor the released wildcats and provide them with supplementary food as they adapt to their new environment. Sadly, two females, Midge and Oats, died shortly after release – one from a vehicle collision and the other from starvation after moving to an area with low prey availability and not returning for supplementary food. Thankfully, the rest of the released wildcats appear to be faring well and the team continue to monitor their location and behaviour as much as possible.

A combination of GPS and accelerometer data, followed up by field visits to get camera footage, have also been able to identify carcass feeding. Whilst the main source of prey for wildcats are voles, rabbits, and to a lesser extent hares (confirmed through analysing scat samples), carcass feeding on roe deer in particular was an important resource for the wildcats during last winter. This behaviour has been recorded in mainland European wildcats as well.

Supporting communities to live alongside wildcats

Saving Wildcats is as much about people as it is about wildcats, and since the project’s inception the team have been working with local communities to ensure a fair coexistence between wildcats and people. To date, Saving Wildcats has spoken with 67 individual landowners and managers and has organised over 80 events with the community in the local area. Door to door visits to promote domestic cat neutering, arranging school visits, giving community talks and attending local events are all part of the busy engagement team’s work. Practical solutions, like predator-proof poultry coops, have been introduced to mitigate conflicts and a gamekeepers’ workshop in March was held to find solutions to challenges around pheasant predation and disturbance. The team have also continued to run a programme of Trap-Neuter-Vaccinate-Release (TNVR) to protect wildcats from interbreeding with feral domestic cats (hybridisation) and reduce the risk of disease transmission. This is especially important now that kittens have been born in the wild to protect their future and that of the species.

Looking ahead to 2025 breeding and release

This year will be the third year of annual releases by Saving Wildcats. Although the team are still finalising plans, it looks likely the wildcats will be released during the summer months into areas where either males or females are needed to balance the existing population, or to expand further into the southern region of the release site.

Detailed monitoring of the wildcat population has been critical over the winter months so we can understand how the wild born kittens cope with the weather extremes. In the wild, survival rates for kittens in their first year can be as low as 1 in 4, so this will be an anxious time for the team. It seems many of the young wildcats born in 2024 may have dispersed out of the project area, as they are no longer showing up on the trail cameras. This innate behaviour is expected as it mitigates the risks of inbreeding with parents or siblings, as well as competing for resources. The team continue to monitor those remaining as much as possible.

Meanwhile, in the CBRC, eight wildcats have been paired up for a fourth consecutive breeding season. The happy couples are Embo and Torr, Fergus and Morag, Mallachie and Skye and Oscar and Margaret. Whilst it was not exactly “love at first sight” for some of the pairs, all of the wildcats have been observed mating. The keepers will continue to monitor the females closely for signs of pregnancy. Although it’s only early days, the team hope to be welcoming kittens from May onwards.

Preparing the next steps for Saving Wildcats

Species recovery does not happen overnight and there is a long way to go before Scotland has a sustainable population of wildcats again. Saving Wildcats was founded with detailed plans to October 2026, and you can see what positive progress has been achieved so far thanks to your support.

Building on this, the team are now advancing their plans for the second phase of Saving Wildcats from 2027-2032. The initial wildcat population you have helped to establish in the Cairngorms Connect landscape is still at a very early stage and will only survive with continued protection and further releases. If wildcats are truly to thrive in Scotland, it will also be essential to expand wildcat releases into new areas of the Highlands. Thank you again for your support for wildcats to take their first steps on the road to recovery in Scotland.

Thank you for helping us fund this research to protect wildcats in Scotland.

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All images credit to Saving Wildcats, Royal Zoological Society Scotland. Original article published by Saving Wildcats.