A system of scoring coat markings (called pelage criteria) offers a well established and scientifically peer reviewed methodology.

This Scottish wildcat hybrid is being measured whilst under anaesthetic. We also inspected in detail for coat patterns. This cat displays classic hybrid features and loosely fitting pelage criteria which falls short in various ways.

Trapped very early on, this cat has a very skinny tail but the overall pelage score is still better than most of the cats currently in captivity.

Accurately applying pelage criteria requires getting a really close up look at the wildcats still living in the wild. With substantial live trapping already planned for feral cat neutering, it was a small additional step to trap all the wildcats as well and take a look at the population in a level of detail never before attempted.

We designed wildcat trapping to focus on good identification and gather essential data that couldn’t be gathered any other way: precise measurements, health checks and blood sampling for genetics and disease research.

Ultimately this would build a database of all the Scottish wildcats in the Haven region and a precise understanding of their genetic make-up and health.

During field trials, our trapping project was expanded to incorporate radio-collaring. The lightweight collars, which would fall off over time meaning cats didn’t need to be re-trapped, record data on territory size, use of different habitats and engagement with other radio collared wildcats, hybrids and ferals.

A hybrid waking up in a space-blanket style Blizzard Bag for warmth with radio collar fitted for ongoing monitoring and research

Such data has huge value for understanding what wildcats need in their environment and how they relate to the various other cats.

As the Scottish wildcat is a protected species, it was necessary to obtain an operating license from government before starting work. At that time, Wildcat Haven was the only organisation licensed to carry out wildcat trapping and blood sampling.

We have taken the decision not to reapply for a new wildcat licence after the licence expired in late 2015. The reasons for this are

A licence is only required to live trap wildcats, a practice Wildcat Haven avoid in the interests of animal welfare.

If we were to capture any pure wildcats, then under the terms of the licence, we would have to inform SNH of the location of these cats. SNH have licensed the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) to take wildcats from the wild and put them into permanent captivity. This is something that Wildcat Haven vehemently oppose.

In short, by working under a licence and trapping wildcats, we would in fact be jeopardising their survival in the wild due to the licensing condition requiring us to inform SNH. We therefore believe it is in the best interests of the wildcats not to relay their location to SNH and hence not to renew our wildcat trapping licence.

A further level of complication was in deciding where to draw the line that defined wildcat from hybrid. No one knows for sure how many pure wildcats are left, meaning that if we set out to neuter everything that wasn’t 100% pure, there would be a risk of leaving too few wildcats to rebuild the population.

Establishing purity is important. Hybridisation results in Scottish wildcats that behave increasingly like domestics, tending towards over-population and hunting what would otherwise be non-target species, as well as the complications of increased conflict with humans.

The purest possible wildcat is desirable because it will perfectly fit into our native ecology having had 2 million years of evolutionary “field trials” to do so.

We decided that an initial line would be drawn amongst high purity hybrids using pelage criteria, creating a safety population buffer to ensure we didn’t neuter too many cats. Meanwhile, data and samples are gathered to give us an overview of how many cats of each type lived in the Haven region.

As our understanding improved, purity standards could be increased, the safety population reduced and eventually a precise genetic line can be drawn, ideally protecting only the pure wildcat, but also accepting that some small level of hybridisation may have to ultimately be accepted.

The purest wildcats in the Haven have proven themselves to be remarkably cautious animal. Mild winters have added to the difficulty; one of the main things tempting cats into traps is the promise of shelter and food in a cold and sparse winter. During a mild winter, pure wildcats can manage just fine without taking the risk.

Numerous landowners, farmers and gamekeepers are working with our field team targeting the last few cats in the region for live trapping, which also appear to be the cats with the greatest potential for purity, their extreme avoidance only adding to the sense of expectation that they could be some of the last true Scottish wildcats roaming these islands.

Identifying wildcats has proven to be an exceptionally complicated issue.

Genetics is another aspect of science often misunderstood: there are no machines which accept any piece of genetic material and then tell you precisely what it is.

Firstly, you have to tell the machine exactly what a Scottish wildcat looks like genetically. The machine then compares any future samples against that definition.

This is straightforward if you have lots of pure wildcats around to take samples from and offer to the machine. However, the captive ‘wildcat’ population is full of hybrids and there were no samples to start from.

Previous efforts had attempted to extrapolate a few genetic markers using hybrid samples. This was certainly a start point, but this would still define many hybrids as wildcats. What is really needed is an absolute and complete genetic definition to test against. The only to do this is to get wildcat samples that predate domestication.

Another issue that feral cats can bring with them is a much higher prevalence of feline diseases such as feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) and feline leukaemia virus (FeLV).

These can be spread through sexually transmitted bodily fluids, through fighting or just in everyday contact. A tendency to overpopulate and live in colonies means that a single cat can rapidly infect several others.

Some feline diseases are treatable, but often require ongoing care and medicines. For cats in the wild, many feline diseases result in a slow death, even if the disease itself doesn’t directly kill the cat, it often hampers a cat’s ability to effectively hunt, defend itself and survive or leads to other infections resulting in the death of the cat.

As highly solitary animals – often separated by vast distances – a Scottish wildcat population may still pick up diseases, but they’re unlikely to go very far and typically only affect one cat. When hybrids and ferals are added to the mix, they create a serious threat of increased transmission across the wildcat population.

As part of our work every trapped cat receives a general health check looking for problems such as feline upper respiratory tract disease (or cat flu), however the real focus is on diseases such as FIV and FeLV.

These are quickly tested for in the field using a SNAP test: a little plastic tool which just requires a drop of blood and then indicates whether the diseases are present; a bit like a pregnancy testing kit.

If the result is negative, the cat then goes through the standard process: being neutered if it is feral, possibly radio collared and ultimately returned to where it was originally trapped.

If the result is positive, then unfortunately veterinary and welfare guidelines recommend that feral cats are euthanized to prevent a slow, unpleasant death and transmission of the disease to other cats.

If a Scottish wildcat is found to be positive for these diseases then we must consult with statutory agencies: the wildcat may be able to stay in the wild or it may be able to add to the captive breeding program; the decision being dependent on the precise situation and disease.

Blood samples from all the cats are sent off for both genetics research and disease research by experts who look for a much wider range of diseases beyond FeLV and FIV to build up a precise picture of feline diseases in the area. This can be cross referenced with other data such as from radio collaring to begin to understand how they may be transmitted amongst the cat populations.

Besides building up a very detailed database of the prevalence of diseases in Wildcat Haven, researchers also hope that various hypotheses of Scottish wildcats having some natural defences against some feline diseases may open up avenues of research into treatments and cures for other wild species and domestic cats.

We’ve been extremely fortunate in Wildcat Haven to have found almost no trace of feline diseases so far. The first colony of feral cats neutered, about 20 individuals strong, included two FeLV cats who, under veterinary instruction, were euthanised: it was very fortunate that they were new additions to the colony and had not had a chance to pass the disease on to the other cats.

So long as we keep seeing disease free cats across the various populations, Wildcat Haven can remain a very healthy place for a Scottish wildcat to be.

As it is unlikely that we will ever see Britain entirely free of feral cats, there will always be some risk that they could return to Wildcat Haven. As the natural environment and Scottish wildcat population recovers after centuries of damage it’s important that we closely monitor the situation, be alert for feral cats re-appearing in the region and also look for further ways we can help.

A key design feature of the Haven is creating a feral cat buffer zone, or border control area. Around the neck of the peninsula areas are set up which are heavily live and camera trapped to get us a heads up on any feral cat migration into the region, and to trap and neuter them before they get there.

Just a corner of a huge, 40 square mile, Scottish wildcat territory in the Haven region; possibly the largest wildcat territory in the world, though there may be many more like this across the West Highlands

Sightings are also encouraged from the local community and supplemented by further camera traps dotted around, just in case we have missed any cats for neutering or someone dumps an unwanted pet within the Haven borders.

Neutered cats always have the tip of their left ear removed so it’s quite easy to tell from a sighting whether a cat has already been neutered or not, backed up by a microchip as sometimes injuries to ears can disguise the ear-tip, and we’ve been taking time to get to know the various pet cats around so that they can’t be misidentified as ferals.

Like much of Scotland, Haven has large areas of bare hills and moors: ruggedly beautiful certainly, but of little value to a wildcat, a couple of hundred years ago this would have been completely forested before being clear cut by man.

The action plan outlined the need for a full-time Wildcat Haven ranger service: someone needed to be on the ground year round, keeping an eye on how things were going, providing a point of contact for the local community, and able to respond immediately to any sightings of feral cats with targeted trapping.

With every wildcat in the Haven apparently maintaining a very large territory, we perceive a critical need to improve their habitat and build denser prey populations. Done successfully, this sort of work could very easily triple the wildcat population across the Haven region.