Rare Cat Breeds (comprehensive article)

Here are some more relatively rare cat breeds – the photos are by Helmi Flick and copyrighted:

Kurilian bobtail – Rare American Wirehair – Fairly rare Cymric – Fairly rare

The second is a list of the cat breeds that are the rarest of those breeds that are either recognized by the associations or are pending acceptance (this is not a totally comprehensive list but a very good one nonetheless). This is the sort of list that I think people are searching for as these cats can be adopted as they are available. The question is, what criteria should be used to decide the rare cat breeds in this group? I’ve come up with a unusual answer and used a combination of commonsense tests to decide. The method is very much less academic than might be expected but I believe sound. Anyone of these criteria would be inaccurate on their own but together a reliable picture of rarity is built up. These are the criteria/tests:

1. Any information available on the Internet is used. This is usually incomplete information, hence the need for further criteria and tests. In other words does the Internet give us any clues as to the rare cat breeds?
2. The lack of popularity of a cat breed is a reflection of its rarity. A very rare breed cannot be popular because of its rarity and an unpopular breed will be rare because breeders have no motivation to breed the cat. I have used this website’s current popularity poll as a reasonable guide.
3. YouTube is a great unused resource in certain respects. There are many millions of videos of cats. They accurately reflect what is happening “on the ground”. I have used the YouTube search facility to discover how many videos there are of each breed of cat. The rare cat breeds will be reflected in the lower number of videos. {Note: this has proved to be very reliable and an accurate reflection}
4. In essence, cat breeding is in a commercial market. It follows the market. Where there is demand
   for a cat there will be more cat breeders. A search on the Internet for cat breeders of a certain breed is a guide as to whether the cat is one of the rare cat breeds. The smaller the number of breeders the rarer the cat. Breeders use the Internet a lot so this is a sound method. They use the Internet a lot as cat breeding is now an international market, at least at the top end. I chose to do this research by selecting a directory site with a lot of hits, The Cat Channel. A lot of breeders are listed on this site so the sample was large.
5. I know a bit about pictures of cats! Where there are many pictures there are many cats and vice-versa. I  have used this indicator as another tool to find the rare cat breeds. I have qualified this search. When there are a number of pictures that are the same but on different sites a reduction in the number is made. I have ranked the outcome of using these criteria with a bar chart. The longer the bar the more breeders, photographs or popular the cat.

 
Note: I found that the criteria I used matched nicely, one following the other and reinforcing the other with little surprises, thus reassuring me that the methodology is sound.

Finally, it is hardly worth saying but we have to decide in which country we are researching the rare cat breeds. I have chosen the obvious answer (no choice really) which is the USA as it is the biggest domestic pet market. If a cat is rare there it is more likely to be rare elsewhere. Although some breeds such as Russian cats (Peterbald, Kurilian Bobtail and Donsky) will be less rare in Russia and more rare in the US, of course.