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 Steve Piper is campaigning to save the Wildcat As part of our campaign to raise money for the essential captive breeding program Steve will be writing weekly blogs right here, talking in some more depth about the cats, the Association and everything else happening in the world of wildcats! Nice to be here! It's always tricky knowing how to start things like this off; but I guess credit where it's due is always good so I'd like to say a huge thank you to editor Sue, web-guy James and all the rest of the team at Your Cat for their incredible support of our cause; what started as an everyday request for an article has rapidly snowballed into something that can make a big difference to the future of these animals. I've also got to make a massive thank you to you the readers as well; the first bag of post to arrive after the magazine went on sale already had donations in it which have got us well on the way towards Wildwood's new aerial walkways; your generosity is hugely appreciated! Over the following weeks and months I'll be posting regular updates on how everything is going, and I know the magazine team are going to be publishing plenty of info in the magazine too, please do drop in an e-mail if you’ve got any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them here. Rounding off this intro, I thought I'd try and predict a couple of comments that often come my way when I hear from people who love cats… 1. Do you hate domestic cats? Definitely not! I love cats of every shape, size and species and share my home with two much loved moggies. Coffee is a seven year old big beautiful blotched tabby that sleeps her days away at the end of my desk. Cookie Monster is a delicate little white with torti splodges that came from the RSPCA, she gets midnight crazies at any hour of the day, makes a lot of bizarre chirping noises and likes lettuce. I’ve lived with cats my entire life and always plan to, it’s definitely not their fault they’re such a threat to wildcats. 2. Do the SWA plan to cull feral cats? Also definitely not! We're working out some field conservation work at present that will look at things like humane trapping and neutering with release or re-homing, along with subsidised neutering programs and lots of public awareness work to encourage responsible cat ownership. There are a variety of costs to overcome, laws to work around and hopefully partnerships to be formed with local people, other charities and organisations but we really hope that within a year we'll be in a position to start creating a feral-free "wildcat haven" up in the Highlands; eventually this would become the ideal spot to start releasing the captive bred cats into. 3. Is captive breeding cruel? Captivity definitely can be cruel in the wrong hands and it’s never ideal, we've all heard horror stories uncovered by organisations like Born Free. Unfortunately if we want to see wildcats still in Scotland in 10 years time captive breeding is the only insurance policy we have and it's going to be an essential aid to rebuilding the wild population. The dedicated team working within the official program are all very genuine advocates and admirers of the wildcat as a wild animal and a few are world leading experts. It's a small community which is tightly monitored by a studbook keeper and various official zoo associations with welfare a constant priority; unhappy wildcats quite simply don't breed. The only failing of the campaign is that it has no outside financial support so some enclosures are a bit smaller and plainer than we'd really like, and that's what the Your Cat campaign is all about. Your generous donations combined with other support coming in from a variety of sponsors is going to help breeders build the best possible facilities ranging from tree walkways to much larger open-air enclosures getting captive life much closer to life in the wild. My honest hope is that the gorgeous little kittens getting born now in captivity are going to be seeing out their lives in the wild as the future of the species. Keep those donations coming; every penny from Your Cat readers gets spent on the wildcats! Do you have any comments for Steve? Email them to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it with Scottish Wildcats as the subject |
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