UK’s Rarest Mammal Will Go Extinct Without This

the scottish wildcat is the uk's most threatened mammal and in today's video we're going to be taking a look at its past its present and now thanks to some brilliant work its future here in the uk diving into what threatened them in the past what threatens them now and how this crucial work is being undertaken to ensure the highland tiger lives on my name is rob and this is live curious and here we create content about rewiring in the uk so if that's something that you like sound of hit like and subscribe [Music] do not confuse the scottish wild cat as a domestic cat gone feral they are very much their own species they can be twice the size and way more ferocious like seriously just look at that face so it was thought that around 10 000 years ago after the last ice age when sea levels rose a population of european wildcats were isolated to the british isles and subsequently evolved into the scottish wild cat with its distinct black and brown stripes over its thick water resistant coat and of course their banded tufty blunt-ended tail and piercing eyes and for the last several thousand years the wildcat would have roamed much of the uk which would have looked far different to how we see it now it would have been far less managed and would have been way more trees but what is left of the depleted population of wildcats can be found in scotland and if you're lucky enough to spot on in the wild you'll not only be struck by the black and brown bands on their fur but also three distinct stripes on either side of their face and no doubt if you get close enough you'd get a display of their teeth they have long canines which are designed to be the perfect spine size gap for making quick kills and the teeth further back in their mouth are crisscrossed this enables them to rip through and eat raw meat they are extremely adaptable hunters this behavior evolves from the compounding fragmentation and loss of woodland across the uk surviving almost exclusively upon me eating an array of different prey from all types of small mammals woodland game birds lizards insects and carrion with some livestock farmers even saying that they get the odd sheep they're unafraid of water being known to swim across rivers in their territories which can range from anything from one to two square miles all the way up to 40 square miles and for the most part they are solitary aggressive animals but the male and females only overlap in territories during the breeding season and it's during this time that the female may let out a whale to gain the attention of males but for the most part they are an extremely quiet species with kittens even playing in complete silence so not to attach the attention of predators the mother will care ferociously for her young they are an extremely unique and independent force of nature that is just both fierce and mysterious in equal measure and when you consider just how nature depleted the uk is we are extremely lucky to have an animal like the scottish wildcat but what's happening why are they the most threatened mammal in the uk today well the first is still ongoing threat is habitat loss although they're well adapted to multi-habitat territory the level of fragmentation and urban sprawl meant that by around the late 1880s the wildcat would have been completely pushed out of england and wales to the further reaches of scotland the increased intensity of hunting during the victorian era also spelled trouble however over the last century as the world wars and their aftermath took the attention of the uk and as reforestation programs slowly increased woodland cover the wildcats territories marginally increased and this gave them the ability to disperse and come into contact with the most serious threat which faces the wild cat today domestic cats it's actually the inbreeding with domestic cats that threatens the wildcat because every time a fertile hybrid is produced which then dilutes the defining traits and characteristics and behaviors of the scottish wildcat and this threat from fertile hybrids was first acknowledged as a quite serious issue during the late 1970s and 80s and then it was research that was conducted throughout the 90s that found just how dire the situation was for the wildcat due to these fertile hybrids and it concluded that they were on the brink of extinction studies were carried out from 2009-2012 in an area of the kangaroos where some sightings of some wildcats with distinct markings were made as you see one of the biggest distinguishing factors between a true scottish wildcat and the fertile hybrid are its markings on its fur and its general appearance hybrids will generally be smaller more slender but also the stripes black and brown balance on the body and tell even face they'll be broken and less distinctive with hybrids having a pointed tail tip whereas true wildcats will have a bushy blunt tipped tail and given this an action plan was put into place by 2013 which united a large group of organizations and experts to conduct research and to promote all aspects of land management to be wildcat friendly as well as capturing domestic stray cats neutering them vaccinating them and then letting them go again and also to promote proper responsible cat ownership but also crucially to develop a captive breeding program and then by 2015 the plan the approach had developed into scottish wildcat action which continued to gather data and work with local people and to maintain a healthy captive population but then in 2018 an independent review was carried out by the iucn into the conservation status of the scottish wildcat and it found that there was no longer a viable population in the world of wildcats and it was due to inbreeding with domestic cats this put captive breeding at the front and center of the scottish wildcats survival and over the past few years a recovery project has been put into place known as saving scottish wildcats they've constructed an actual center a hub at the royal zoological society in scotland dedicated to not only breeding wildcats but to ensure their training and preparation to be released to the caregivers national park saving wildcats is looking to be our best shot at well saving the wildcat fundamentally their work can be split into two broad categories insinchu and xxu first let's look at the exits you work now this is work day that is happening not in the world this is the work at the center and within the enclosures the team is comprised of vets keepers construction members and special support from europe they've got two main areas a breeding enclosure and a pre-release enclosure at all times the welfare of cats is fundamental within these enclosures ensuring their physical and mental development a big part of this work is population management which is all about selecting the right individuals to come to the center from the wider networks of zoos centres across the uk but also if required specific individuals can be used from europe to strengthen genetic viability and within the release center the cats are monitored remotely to ensure that they're having minimal interaction with people before they're released to the wild and specific tools and methods are being set up to engineer the cat's natural instincts so that when they are released to the wild they behave in the right way and now the other side of the work known as in-situ this is all of the work that is going on in the wild in scotland and this work also has two main areas firstly working with specific release sites and then to consider the rest of scotland under a wider approach so a potential release site has actually been recognized but it's still kind of early days they're still working through so many images from camera traps to get a good understanding of what's using this habitat and also a huge part of the in-city side is working with the local people ensuring that domestic cats are responsibly cared for and to explore the general feelings and stories around the wildcat this social work continues out in the wider part of scotland where habitat modelling is being applied to find more potential sites of release and of course the work continues to capture domestic feral cats stray cats they're captured they're vaccinated they're neutered and then they're and then they're released so that you know in the future when true scottish wildcats are released they're not going to be affected by these hybrids so this year at saving wildcats eight kittens were born across three different litters and this was a result of pairing up 16 different wildcats so there's hope that there's going to be more to follow soon droma a mother to three of the kittens is doing fantastically well with this video showing the kittens growing in confidence this month and it's next year in 2023 that hopefully these cats will be released to scotland but there's still a lot of work to be done before that point and you know with the promise of more kittens on the way soon this is looking incredibly promising so please be sure to check out all the ways that you can get on to ensure the future of this project so head down in the description of the video to find out all the links and everything on how you can help you know who knows one day leave curious might make a trip to the center i would love to see me some like wild cat kittens that would just be amazing but yeah i think that's it for me in this one check out the links on the screen now but in the meantime thank you so much for watching leave curious [Music]

Channel: Leave Curious

Views: 11,739

Keywords: rewilding britain

Id: 7C56OdmQJZg

Length: 9min 7sec (547 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 08 2022