People ask the question: “why are wild cats endangered”. So please don’t complain that this is a boring subject. The answer to the question will be generalised and it will be very brief because in respect of all wild cat species the answer is the same: there is growing human activity and there is too much human activity which invariably leads to loss of wild cat habitat, loss of wild cat prey, poaching of the wild cats for their body parts, legal killing of wild cats for their body parts, poisoning of the large wild cats because they prey on livestock because the cat’s territory has been encroached upon by farmers (retaliatory killings) and we must not forget sport hunting. Despite wild cats becoming increasingly endangered sport hunters like to kill the big cats for pleasure.
That is the general answer. I emphasise “general” because specific conservation issues relate to specific species. You could qualify the answer like this. The organisation which decides whether or not a wild cat species is endangered is the IUCN Red List. If you visit their website you’ll notice than many of the 36-40 wild cat species are not listed as “endangered”. I think they are wrong but who am I to question the experts?
If they are correct then the question in the title is wrong. It should read: “Why are some wild cat species designated as endangered?” The answer, in general terms, is the one put forward in the first paragraph above.
As the human population grows relentlessly, and it is growing fastest in Africa where there are some precious wild cat species such as the lion, human activity also expands and inevitably there will be even greater pressure on the survivability of the wild cats.
In short, the long term prognosis is poor for the wild cats as it is for almost all wild species of animal. By the long term I mean 50-100 years hence. I believe you will see some wild cat species extinct in the wild in 100 years. It might well be the most iconic of all the wild cats; the tiger.
Which bring ups the question but for the availability of feral and I’m sure some fairly domestic cats would the Highland be extinct ?
And would a program of integrating some American Bobcat genes be beneficial ?
Yes, agreed. The Scottish wild cat conservation problem is unusual. It is possible that all the Scottish wildcats are now hyrids. A similar problem probably exists with respect to the other wild cat species such as the African wildcat and the Chinese Desert Cat.
Probably, also here http://www.scottishwildcats.co.uk/wildcat.html they say that wildcats found near human habitats are almost always hybrids.
But it also dilutes the species if a Scottish queen mates with a domestic tom. Then, the resulting kittens are reared in the wild, and the queen may not be available to Scottish wildcat males the same season and the queens are only in heat one time a year in the beginning of the year unless she a litter. After a while though, domestic blood may start predominating.
On the other hand, if a Scottish wildcat tom mates with a feral female, the resulting kittens are reared as a domestic feral without wildcat skills or habits taught to them, so they’ll essentially be ferals.
I wonder about kittens behavior issues if someone failed to spay an indoor-outdoor female and she has an unusual mating partner. Kittens might display some unexpected behavior traits.
In the case of the Scottish Wildcat hybridization may be part of the natural evolution or survival of the species. It seems the gene pool is very limited with this cat.
One other aspect which isn’t applicable to large cats, but is applicable to small ones is hybridization with domestic cats, especially ferals. This happens with Scottish wildcat, and it’s actually not even clear how many pure Scottish wildcats are left given that some of the supposedly pure wildcats show signs of hybridization. There is a video from a Scottish wildlife preserve showing supposedly pure wildcat, but the cat has a little white under its chin which is a sign of some hybridization. It happens with European wildcats as well as all sub-species of Felis Sylvestris as well.
Some of the other small wild felines would interbreed with domestic cats in nature e.g. there are wild occurring hybrids of Rusty-spotted cat and domestic cat in India.
A sad commentary on the human species.