This campaign has now closed
With barely a handful left, wildcats in Scotland are facing imminent extinction. The only way to save them is to restore them into wild places where the threats they face have been mitigated. Your donation can fund urgently needed equipment for the releases of wildcats into the wild from 2023 onwards.
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Situation
Wildcats are one of the UK's rarest and most threatened mammal. Already lost from England and Wales, wildcats are now on the brink of extinction in Scotland. A sad history of habitat loss, persecution and interbreeding with domestic cats has brought the Highland tiger to a point where they were declared functionally extinct in 2019. The last and only hope for the species is to breed and release a new population into suitable habitats where the risks of interbreeding and persecution have been resolved
Solution
Led by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, Saving Wildcats was founded in 2020. Thanks to support from many people, a dedicated Conservation Breeding for Release Centre has been built at Highland Wildlife Park where wildcats are now breeding successfully. In parallel, a field team has identified suitable release sites and carried out a programme of threat mitigation. From summer 2023, the first releases of wildcats into the wild can start, giving hope for the future of the Highland tiger!
