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The Biggest Ever!
From 17 – 19 September 2007, the “Felid Biology and Conservation Conference” united 300 cat specialists, both researchers and colleagues from other fields dedicated to cat conservation. Many more wanted to come, but the number of people allowed in the conference room was limited. The conference was organised by David Macdonald and Andrew Loveridge and their team of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit from the Zoology Department at University of Oxford, better known as the WildCRU, with the Panthera Foundation as generous donor and the IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group as co-organiser. The venerable Oxford University Museum of Natural History provided the dignified frame for the opening ceremony, the plenary lectures – and for the group picture below. At the welcome party, after David Macdonald had inaugurated the conference, Thomas Kaplan, chairman of the Panthera Foundation, presented the Kaplan-Rabinowitz Prize to Georg Schaller for his merits in cat conservation research. The following three days brought 103 oral presentations and 77 posters – the largest compilation of felid research ever. In their introduction to the abstract book, David Macdonald and Andrew Loveridge expressed the hope that this conference would become a memorable occasion. This hope became more than true! |
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Fig. 1. Number of presentations at the Oxford conference per cat species (alphabetic by scientific name). Red columns represent oral presentations, blue, posters. In bracket vernacular names and Red List categories (see caption Fig. 2). Multi-species papers were counted for each species if they presented specific data or listed under “multi species” if they were generic. |
The 180 oral or poster presentations in the abstract book provide a comprehensive overview on cat research and offer an opportunity to assess our efforts to understand and preserve the wild living cats. Figure 1 shows the distribution of the 180 papers on the 36 cat species. Presentations looking at more than one species were counted for each species or listed under “multi species” if they dealt rather with a guild than the individual species. Such papers often concerned the Neotropical cats, which are especially interesting to look at from a multi-species perspective. It is obvious that the big charismatic cats get most of the attention, with the four Panthera species particularly outstanding, followed by the not less charismatic cheetah. On the other hand, nine of the smaller species were not at all addressed, and some others were presented by only one oral presentation or poster. Such preferences may be justified if they consider the conservation status of the species. Figure 2 lists the relative share of the Oxford presentations according to the Red List classification of the species studied compared to the relative number of cat species in the respective category. On the first sight, the two columns match almost perfectly, with slightly more works than species in the two highest threat classes Endangered and Critically Endangered. However, if we distinguish the species, we realise that of the 32 presentations on Endangered species, 24 concerned tigers, 4 snow leopards, 2 Andean cats, and none the Bornean bay cat. |
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Of course, the amount of research goes hand in hand with the awareness and the reliability of our assessment of the conservation status of a species. The tiger is presently not doing well – but at least we know this. For many of the smaller cat species, including those listed as Endangered or Vulnerable, our knowledge is so limited that we cannot even be certain to grasp a significant decrease of the population. After the felid conference, the Cat Specialist Group held a workshop to review the Red List assessment of all cat species (see article in this issue). Even though this workshop united an impressive group of cat specialists from all corners of the world, much of the assessment of the lesser cats is still pure guess work.
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Fig. 2. Species-specific presentations at the Oxford conference by Red List categories: LC = Least Concern, NT = Near Threatened, VU = Vulnerable, EN = Endangered, CR = Critically Endangered. Blue columns represent the percentage of papers (N = 170) on cat species in the respective category, red columns the relative share of species (N = 36) in the category. |
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The Oxford felid conference was an impressive compilation and demonstration of our present knowledge on cats, their biology and their conservation. Increased awareness, more funding and modern techniques have allowed significantly advancing our understanding of these elusive species so difficult to study. At the same time, the conference also revealed, which species we still lack on our screen and how much work is left to do. But we left Oxford with the feeling that, in spite of all difficulties we face conserving cats, we have achieved a lot and will succeed with such a bunch of dedicated folks working together. Urs Breitenmoser |
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