IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
| Fredriksen, A. | |
| Of wildcats and wild cats: troubling species-based conservation in the Anthropocene | |
| 2016 Environment and Planning D: Society and Space (34): 689-705 | |
This article takes the case of Scottish wildcats, threatened with extinction through hybridisation with feral domestic cats, as a site for exploring what it means to conserve a species as such. To this end, the article looks at the practices associated with conserving Scottish wildcats as defined by a definite phenotypical, morphological and/or genetic type, abstracted from indefinite, fleshy organisms emplaced and entangled within changing ecologies. The article describes the biopolitical work of taxonomically distinguishing wildcats (_Felis silvestris_) from domestic cats (_Felis catus_) and their hybrids, exploring the challenges presented to this work by the disorderly agencies of wild-living cats. It then outlines and reflects on the proposed captive breeding programme aimed at preserving the 'pure' Scottish wildcat sub-species type. This case highlights the ways in which species-based conservation can conflict with care for individual animals as well as with life's immanent, generative tendencies. |
|
 |
PDF files are only accessible to Friends of the Cat Group. Joining Friends of the Cat Group gives you unlimited access and downloads in the Cat SG Library for one year, and allows you to receive our newsletter Cat News (2 regular issues per year plus special issues). More information how to join here |
(c) IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group ( IUCN - The World Conservation Union) |