IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| MacDonald, D.W.; Yamaguchi, N.; Kitchener, A.C.; Daniels, M.; Kilshaw, K.; Driscoll, C. | |
| Reserving cryptic extinction: the history, present, and future of the Scottish wildcat | |
| 2010 Book Chapter | |
Following the demise of the lynx (_Lynx lynx_) by early medieval times (Hetherington et al. 2005), the Scottish wildcat (_Felis silvestris grampia_) is the only remaining indigenous felid in Britain. In a country that has also lost the wolf (_Canis lupus_) (1743) and bear (_Ursus arctos_) (c.1000-2000 years ago) (Kitchener and Bonsall 1999), the wildcat survives as an icon of Highland wilderness. Wildcats have been used in heraldry since the thirteenth century, including the Clan Chattan ('Clan of the wildcat'), among others (whose clan motto was, wisely, 'touch not the cat without a glove') (Clan Chattan Association 2008). This evocative, charismatic species is included in Schedules 5 and 6 of Britain's Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 (Macdonald and Tattersall 2001), the highest legislative protection for a wild mammal in the United Kingdom. It also appears in Annex IVa of the European Habitats Directive 1992 and is identified as a European Protected Species in the Conservation (Natural Habitats, &c.) Regulations 1994, as amended (SNH 2008). More recently, it has been listed in the 2007 revision of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (Biodiversity Reporting and Information Group 2007), and is an acknowledged priority of the relevant national authority, Scottish Natural Heritage, in their Five-Year Species Action Framework under criterion 1a ('Native species that are critically endangered in Scotland [or elsewhere, or demonstrating significant decline], or for which Scotland is a stronghold [including species that are only found there i.e. endemic] and there is a continuing threat to the species in the immediate future'; SNH 2007). Research has revealed not only the precariousness of the Scottish wildcat's situation, and the urgency of restorative action (e.g. Macdonald et al. 2004b), but also that the predicament of this species illustrates, in microcosm, fundamental questions in both the science and ideology of species' conservation. These questions concern the definition of species and the consequences of their legal classification, the nature and consequences of introgression, the biological and social considerations in species restoration, the role of captive breeding, and questions spanning conservation genetics and ethics regarding the nature of extinction. |
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