Plans launched to make Scottish wildcat population 'thrive' by 2045
The plan involves relocating wildcats to other parts of Scotland.
New plans to tackle the threats facing Scotland’s wildcat population have been launched with the aim of ensuring the species can “thrive” over the next 20 years.
The wildcat is one of Scotland’s most elusive carnivores and the only native cat still found in the wild in Britain. Conservationists have warned that genetically pure wildcats may have all but disappeared from the Scottish wild, replaced by a “hybrid swarm” of wildcat and domestic cat crosses.
Projects such as Saving Wildcats began breeding pure-strain European wildcats in captivity before releasing them into the Cairngorms National Park in 2023. The first kittens were born the following year and the team working on the project are aware of at least 20 wild-born litters to released females since 2024.
Now more than 25 organisations have joined forces to develop the Scotland’s Wildcat Strategy 2025-2045, aimed at tackling the species’ biggest threat: hybridisation through interbreeding with domestic cats.
The strategy was launched on Tuesday at the Eurowildcat Conference at Highland Wildlife Park in the Cairngorms and will be overseen by a new Scottish Wildcat Advisory Group.
Its goal is to remove the main threats facing the country’s critically endangered wildcats and restore their numbers to “sustainable levels by 2045”. Other threats include feline disease, road collisions, accidental harm from predator control, and habitat fragmentation and disturbance.
A ten-year action plan will focus on restoring wildcat habitat and increasing the microchipping, neutering and vaccination of domestic cats to reduce the risk of hybridisation. There are also plans to translocate wildcats to other parts of Scotland.
Gillian Martin, the climate action and rural affairs secretary, said: “As one of our most iconic species, once widespread across Great Britain, this strategy to conserve the wildcat is built on two decades of work that has created legal protection, deeper knowledge about wildcat biology, ecology and the threats they face.”
She said the strategy built on the “early successes” of wildcat releases and would help the species recover.
Jeff Knott, of Cats Protection, said protecting wildcats would require action from organisations, communities and cat owners.
“Through responsible cat ownership, including neutering, vaccination and microchipping, we can help reduce pressures on wildcat populations while ensuring pet cats lead healthy and happy lives,” he said.
“We look forward to continuing to work alongside partners to support the long-term recovery of this remarkable species.”
Dr Helen Senn, head of conservation at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, the lead partner in the Saving Wildcats project, said the programme had provided important lessons about how to protect the species.
“Saving Wildcats has taught us much about Scotland’s wildcat and the steps we must take to secure its future,” she said. “A key takeaway has been learning how important it is to listen to and work alongside communities.”
She said the new strategy built on those lessons by bringing organisations and communities together around “lasting and practical actions which promise the best possible future for wildcats in Scotland”.
The strategy was developed through a collaborative process designed and run by the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Conservation Planning Specialist Group.
An organising team including representatives from NatureScot, the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, Cats Protection and the National Museum of Scotland helped steer the process. The final strategy was co-produced by 25 organisations and individuals from a range of sectors.
The wildcat was once found across mainland Britain but was persecuted for centuries. In 2019, it was declared functionally extinct.
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