WILD-BORN wildcat kittens have been spotted without collars following a successful breeding season.
The Saving Wildcats partnership, led by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, announced in August that at least two of the females bred in captivity and released into the Cairngorms National Park had given birth in the wild.
Of the at least 16 born, one has now been spotted on a camera trap.
The team can identify that the kitten is first-generation offspring since it is not wearing a tracking collar. They are not collared as the tracking collars cannot be fitted to growing animals born in the wild.
There are now increasing numbers of wildcats across Badenoch and Strathspey, a conservation boost, and most of them do not have tracking collars. Saving Wildcats are continuing to monitor the population as best as possible using a network of camera traps, the locations of which are informed by the wealth of tracking data that we have collected since the first release.
The project has also called on the pubic to assist them in their research, saying they rely on public sightings to keep track of the new and growing population.
Their website states: "If you do see a wildcat in Badenoch and Strathspey please get in touch with as much information as possible (ideally photographs or video, an exact location, time and date) via email, at wildcats@rzss.org.uk."
The project is working to restore Scotland’s critically endangered wildcat population by breeding and releasing them into the wild and mitigating threats to the species.
There are now wildcats across Badenoch and Strathspey, and many of them do not wear tracking collars 🐾 We will continue to monitor them using camera traps, but will increasingly rely on public sightings to keep track of this new and growing population ➡https://t.co/SwoNisFmSQ pic.twitter.com/TUtcO2vN7B
— Saving Wildcats (#SWAforLIFE) (@SaveOurWildcats) November 25, 2024
The project intends to replace a few collars to monitor key individual cats for a while longer as the batteries on the released adult wildcats are running down.
They are currently in the process of trapping wildcats to remove their collars and replace the batteries or remove them entirely.
While many cats will be trapped to remove the collars, they may also drop off on their own. Before deployment each collar is fitted with a drop off mechanism which is a weak link that will degrade over time and given enough time or force, eventually break.
The group hopes to conduct further releases of wildcats next year.
