Scottish wildcats reproduced in imprisonment and afterward delivered into the Cairngorms Public Park have had cats. The births are a first for the Saving Wildcats project drove by Imperial Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS). The previous summer, 19 wildcats raised at RZSS' Good country Natural life Park, close to Aviemore, were delivered into the UK's biggest public park. Something like two females have conceived an offspring.
The hostage reproduced felines are followed by GPS radio restraints fitted to them before discharge, and the moms and cats have since been recorded. Once the kittens are old enough, attempts will be made to get a DNA profile from them. RZSS hopes they are the offspring of male wildcats that were released last year, and not feral domestic cats. Before the wildcats were released, RZSS and its partner organisations trapped, neutered, vaccinated and released any feral domestic cats they could find in the local area.
Conservationists feared the species was on the verge of extinction in 2018. Loss of habitat, breeding with feral cats and disease has been among the main threats to the Scottish wildcat. Dr Keri Langridge, Saving Wildcats field manager, said: “We have taken extreme care not to disturb the mother and kittens, and we carry out all monitoring work under licence from NatureScot. “We didn’t dare to dream that we would have wildcat kittens in the first year of releases, and seeing those kittens on the video was the most exciting moment of the project so far."