The birth of wildcat kittens in the Cairngorms national park has been hailed as a “major milestone” in efforts to rescue the secretive mammals from extinction in the UK.
In footage exclusively shared with the Guardian by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), two of the kittens can be seen playing in grassland with their mother and leaping on to a fallen tree branch.
These are potentially the first wildcats to be born outside captivity in Scotland for more than five years after 19 wildcats, which had been bred at the Highland wildlife park, near Kingussie, were released last summer in sites across the Cairngorms in a pilot project by the Saving Wildcats partnership, led by RZSS.
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The birth of wildcat kittens in the Cairngorms national park has been hailed as a “major milestone” in efforts to rescue the secretive mammals from extinction in the UK.
In footage exclusively shared with the Guardian by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), two of the kittens can be seen playing in grassland with their mother and leaping on to a fallen tree branch.
Wildcats may look distinctive with their muscular bodies, flat faces and thick, blunt tails, but their brown, black and buff camouflage stripes and secretive habits make them difficult to monitor.
The team has been able to gather a large amount of data, learning about den sites, habitat and food preference: as well as their staple diet of mice and voles, these cats have been hunting rabbits and even adult hares.
The project has been sharing tracking data with local gamekeepers – many of the release sites traverse managed estates where predator control is a threat – in an attempt to develop ways in which humans and wildcats can coexist.
With wildcats living in closer proximity to people than expected, and feral cats common around farms, the potential for hybridisation remains high and the team is eager to analyse its fresh data.
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