Scotland's cat; less than 400 remain...

Far back in the history of Scotland clans formed together under the image of the wildcat and fought wars for the independence of the land. Today less than 400 Scottish wildcats remain in the wild and the extinction of Britain's last large mammal predator could come within the next five years.

Welcome to the home of the Scottish Wildcat Association, a charitable organisation dedicated to protecting and conserving Britain's only remaining wild feline; the Scottish wildcat.

No angry tabby or feral the wildcat is a genuine wild species of cat; it was here long before we were and long before the domestic cat had even evolved. Infamously the only wild animal to be completely untameable, even when captive reared, Scottish wildcats may look a little like your pet cat but these are incredibly tough super-predators, sometimes called the Tiger of the Highlands.

Sadly, our wildcat is critically endangered with less than 400 individuals remaining in the wild and barely a handful in the captive breeding population. We carry out a wide range of campaigns and projects designed to rebuild and conserve the wildcat population across the Scottish Highlands through active fieldwork, support of scientific research, fundraising for the captive breeding programme and general public education and awareness.

On this website you can learn more about Scottish wildcats, our conservation projects and lots of ways you can get involved, from posting a banner on you website to helping raise money or volunteering your time.

Latest News

18/03/2012; Latest news...

Wildcat Haven
After lengthy consultation with Scottish Natural Heritage they have requested we only camera trap cats this year and throughout the year so that we can really pinpoint where they live for life trapping next winter, limiting disturbance. It's not an ideal solution in our eyes however no one has trapped wildcats in decades and SNH are understandably cautious. We've been buying lots of camera traps ourselves and have been joined by some volunteers with traps and Kerry Kilshaw from Oxford University who has been camera trapping heavily in the Cairngorms getting some great shots, all together, we will have nearly 100 cameras spread over a 200 square mile area for an entire year which should give us some great insight into the wildlife distribution around Ardnamurchan. Big thanks to Wildlife and Countryside Services for the substantial bulk discount on a bunch of the cameras and memory cards we bought. So far we definitely recommend Bushnell's for use in the wet Scottish climate!

Feral trapping has continued though numbers have been much slower this year as traps have been getting laid for solitary living individuals rather than the large colony we worked with last year, solitary cats are much harder to track down and even less trusting of humans so take some effort! We have now arranged with an experienced vet to be in the field with us throughout future seasons at a temporary neutering clinic so these wild living animals spend as little time as possible trapped in a cage which is very stressful to them.

For our members, the latest edition of The Wangie is almost ready to go out, as ever running a little late, and completes the Wildcat Haven overview; we'll be publishing this in the near future for everyone to access through our website.

Some other great news for the project is the receipt of a further $10,000 of funding from the Bosack Kruger Foundation who visited us at the start of the season to see the project and landscape for themselves (thanks to IFAW for helping with the money transfers!); the grant is a big step towards the budget we need for next year so a huge thanks to them for continuing to keep a very expensive and very important project on the road.

In similar news a so far anonymous US business donor has sent us $15,000 to put where it's most needed within the charity, the trustees are currently weighing up a couple of options for needs the charity has to see which will bring the greatest help to wildcats.

New ways to donate
We’ve recently set up a profile on the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) website so you can now donate through there, type ‘Scottish Wildcat’ in the keywords box then scroll down to our page on the results page. We also now have a GiveaCar profile which arranges to scrap old donated vehicles and pass the money raised back to charity. If anyone has any ideas of other organisations like this, please feel free to email us so we can look into it! Also... don’t forget when you need to search the internet you can do so through EveryClick or EasySearch (links top right on this page) to raise extra funds.

Volunteers
We're always looking for volunteers in all areas who would be interested in distributing leaflets to their local pet shops, vets etc. and we will shortly be putting together a small fundraising team to work on some project ideas. Please email us if you’d like to get involved.

Website updates
We're currently working on a huge update of the website including the new section for Wildcat Haven so advance apologies for any brief silences or odd looking pages, everything should run smoothly and be looking nice by the end of the month; we're integrating some new features to ensure updates are more regular and everything ties together with our social profiles on websites like Facebook and Twitter.

T-shirts and other merchandise
We're hoping to have some t-shirts ready by early spring and plush toys around summer; the manufacturers have been working their way around suppliers all over the world to find a material that carries that "wildcat fur" look and seem to have finally tracked some down! There are also a couple of books on wildcats expected later this year from artist David Mayer, SWA chairman Steve Piper and studbook keeper Neville Buck, we'll be sure to update everything as things become available.

Check out the latest images in our Flickr pool!

Buy wildcat stuff, save Scottish wildcats!
All the items in our shop have pledged donations to the Scottish Wildcat Association for every sale; you can find Mike Tomkies books, David Mayer's beautiful wildcat bronze, first day stamp covers, art prints, Association merchandise or the Coffee Films DVD available with lots of new products being added in the near future, you can see a trailer for the DVD below!