UK’s Rarest Mammal Will Go Extinct Without This 

The Scottish wildcat clearly doesn't appreciate us destroying its habitat and it wants to make it known. Very angry cat.

I give regularly to a Scottish wildcat charity that helps not only the cats directly but is also fighting the government to stop logging and create more protected areas, so it's really nice to see someone highlighting this important topic.

I've not got an animal suggestion but a video on the history and decline of scots pine in england and the reasons behind it would be pretty interesting. I absolutely love your content BTW, I'm trying to build up my career in ecology atm but it's hard being from Manchester, your videos are a very big inspiration for me and I watch all of them as soon as they crop up

I really am enchanted by this cat never heard of it before. Thanks, good luck kitty I hope you get more land soon

I wonder if my cat has some Scottish wildcat in it, she was a stray kitten we found covered in fleas and on the brink of starvation under a car in a village near the Moray Firth. Obviously she’s mostly domestic cat but she’s very large and much more independent and standoffish than the typical house cat.

Precious scotch wild cat , i do hope the work preserves the blood line land owners ,farmers ,goverment should support this project.

I'm lucky enough to have seen one in the wild, 1975, I was 16.

As cute as they are, domestic cats have a lot to answer for generally! Although I guess it should be their owners rather than the cats themselves :)

In 20 seconds I became crazy in love with this fabulous cat..many thanks for the beautifully done photography..To make it a double upper, my ancestral home near Mull, Scotland seems to be their preferred territory. I was there but never saw one. ...surprise surprise

Wow, I had no idea that the UK even had wild cats. Thanks for a nice video!

This video was very interesting.People need more rewilding projects as endangered species are very important.

What a beautiful animal. Absolutely a Maestro. 🙀

Great project, I'm from Italy and I would love to have also in my country initiatives like these!

Drop a comment on which Animal/project you'd like to see next?!

I can't stress enough how important keeping domestic cats indoors are! Not only is it safer for your feline, but when I tell the owners it hurts the ecosystem...this is exactly what I mean! I love the scottish wildcat, thank you for bringing light to their situation!

Rob here's a wee bit of help towards your trip to Scotland! Love your work and really hope these cats pull through!

Let's look at this from a different perspective for a moment. We have two types of cat in the UK, which can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. The British feral cat, _Felis silvestris catus_ has been here in the UK at least 2000 years, whereas the subspecies, _Felis silvestris_ has been here a few thousand years more and presumably spent at least two millennia cross breeding with feral _silvestris catus._ So we are really looking at _breeds_ here and setting a preferred phenotype for the individuals that live in a specific area. There is just as much variation between _catus_ breeds as there is between British feral cats and the Scottish wildcat. The fact that the greatest threat to its existence is interbreeding suggests that it isn't really a species at all, and the only factor that contributed to its differentiation was geographic isolation. The reason why I mention this is that the genes for the specified 'Scottish Wild Cat' characteristics undoubtedly exist within the common _catus_ genome, which means that what is being touted as preservation of a 'species' is more likely to be the creation of a breed that looks like a 'Scottish Wild Cat' is *meant* to look but may have no more direct familial connection to the actual article than your average fireside moggy. Which is fine, if that's what you want to do, _as long as you do not harm animals in the process._ This conservational beauty competition should not be an excuse for culling our native feral population, who have been here for millennia and have as much right to be here as their (kissing) cousins.

Ferocious cat. I think tiger cat is UK's top land predator.

I would love to see a feature on some of the UKs marine life :)

Please read about Wildcat Haven charity that works very hard to both protect the Scottish wildcat & promote the fact that they are NOT extinct. The government & RZS are not following best practices for the welfare of all wildcats & these independent charities need public support to support the wildcats 😻

let's turn brown sites into green sites and build some woods, link em all up throughout England, under road tunnels for animals

it has the most intense stare lol.

The UK needs a larger predator but I think the lynx is the only one that farmers might be willing to live with.

I had no idea this species existed until now!

Nice video, I hope the Scottish wildcat recovers

Bravo!! Your videos are always a joy! Thank you for your tireless work! I hope one day you're knighted!

i hope youll never feel defeated never uninspired and never helpless 🌿🐾 you helped me gain back a sense of we can do something we can change the street were walking down and we matter which i had lost over the past years

Me: it’s sad how this species is slowly going extinct due to crossbreeding. Also me: I wish to pet this creature

That is one tough cookie..... sending you all lots and lots of love for the work you do.

Seem like we had Scottish cat or hybrid. We found kitten on streets to grow into big and very intelligent cat. I was trying to find his breed but nothing has come so close as Scottish cat.

Great video Rob! :)

If the wolf still lived in the uk, it would be in a worse situation

Inspiring as always! Do you know if any studies have been done on potential competition if lynx were to be reintroduced? I know that their size difference allows for different prey use, but could we see a situation such as in Yellowstone when wolves killed/displaced a lot of coyotes? That was fine in Yellowstone because coyotes have a healthy population and are still thriving, but I would worry that a newly introduced lynx population would destabilize the tiny wild cats if the population weren’t robust enough yet

Humans are the only invasive species in the UK. These cats have been here longer than the Anglo Saxons and they will still be here long after they have left. How are they separate species when they can produce fertile offspring and look exactly the same?

Is this true? A few years ago, I read that the Scottish Wildcat is the only cat species that cannot be tamed.

id love an update some day on this 🐾

Super interesting as always!

Thanks for all your hard work....You rock

The highland tiger would be such a cool name

There was a wonderful series on Netflix about the Scottish wildcat, fascinating! I hope they thrive.

long live the cats , the Scotts are very lucky to have their own Tiger the Highland cat

While I think online there's a lot of contentious stuff about domestic cats, and especially from americans projecting their anxieties onto the uk, I do think that anyone who lives in an area where scottish wildcats are, should either have their cats neutered or kept within a catio.

I like the term "rewilding". It would be great to bring it to the US.

One thing that kind of bothered me throughout the video was the talk about inbreeding, because that's not what's happening. It's actually quite the opposite. The problem isn't inbreeding, it's outbreeding. Inbreeding is when individuals that are too closely related create offspring, which "concentrates" harmful genes and makes the offspring less ecologically fit. In the case of the Scottish wildcats on the other hand two species that are too DISTANTLY related produce fertile offspring and as a result the beneficial genes of the native/better adapted species are diluted.

Brilliant. What magnificent animals! I was wondering why the feral cats are released. Is it in the hope that they will maintain territories that will keep fertile cats away from the area where they are hoping to reintroduce the wildcat?

Great video

Look at that tail!

Interesting video

I wonder why there has not been any efforts to use purebred European wildcats from the mainland (they are the same species as the Scottish wildcat) to boost the genetic diversity of the Scottish wildcats in the UK?

I want one!

This is worth doing in Scotland. A really bad idea in south western England.

I think it’s really strange that they release the feral domestic cats back into the wild once neutered. Such a strange choice. Then again I am Australian and our policy is to euthanize feral cats. They are horrifically destructive to our native wildlife.

My granny used to have a cat called Gargamel, it was fat and it looks incredibly similar to the wildcats. It’s strange how similar they are considering that domesticated cats originated from North Africa. The question is maybe still out whether or not these are actually a native species or domesticated cats that had simple adapted morphologically to the Scottish highland environment. I guess it depends when domesticated cats were introduced to the U.K. which I’d bet was Roman times. The first Roman invasion was around 40 AD. So the cats could theoretically of had 2000 years to adapt to the Scottish environment.

I enjoy your videos but i’d really appreciate if you could also use the metric system

I can't find any links to the Wildcat capitve breeding programme.

Mini tiger

who knew we had wild cats

I’ve been watching the RU-vid videos regarding the support of native wildlife and the proposed introduction of species such as the lynx, bears and bison into the UK. Lots of luck. The problem of domestic hybrids with the Highland wildcats will not be solved unless the habit of putting the cat out at night is enforcibly abolished. If a female wildcat is in estrus a handy tomcat will step up to the plate. The idea of introducing species such as the lynx, bears and bison into an area of such a large human per square mile population is laughable.

Don't get me wrong, i like the work and the idea. But isn't dying off of certain species and creation of new ones simply natural? Succession of better adopted individuals?

When will they release the wild cat

If you have your own wild cat why are britts bringing otheres in? Domestikate a few of these if one escapes there will be no mutants.

Haha from outback Australia

Looks nasty that meat does especially in a chow mein

Genial 🤝

In North America, they go by the scientific name. Cat.

🌲🐅

Comments for the Algorithm

Great story and i hope it’s very successful. I do have one problem and that’s the soft approach to the wild domestic cats. To vaccinate them and sterilise, then let them go is defeating the purpose of the whole project. Surely these domestic cats are going to eat the food that the wild cats are eating. Then there’s the problem of recapturing the feral domestic cat. Waste of time and energy not to mention money.

I like animals and I like domestic cats but if I lived in Scotland I might be doing target practice

Interesting. But its hardly dying, its simply cross species evolving...... Nothing wrong with that.

Two things. 1) UK as one of most eco barren places on earth is a problem for all nature with current rewilding projects starting to scratch that surface. 2) When I did Biology 'A' level and Zoology and Biochemistry 50 years ago, we distinguished between closely related species according to producing fertile offspring. On that basis, domestic cats and Scottish wild cats are the same species. If you tried to ban humans from Finland coupling with people from Namibian Desert, you'd be slammed as racist. Surely, the same principle applies. In a million years, they might have evolved into different species (old definition), but 10,000 years merely allows characteristics to emerge. Eg, Dutch people are tall, northern Europeans process cow milk, northern people lost skin pigments to process sunlight but also became vulnerable to sunburn. Recover a broader range of ecosystems in UK and, maybe the cats will stay separate, but don't go down the slippery slope of racial purity. Hybrid mongrels are more genetically diverse and healthier than isolated small communities

Domestic cats should be banned in the UK! All cats should be mandatory to be spayed and it comes out of YOUR pocket you wanted the cat accept responsibility and stop helping the species wipe other species off the planet! If your really desperate for cats then only breeders should have cats that can reproduce and they should be closely monitored and have to complete training!

Here's the problem, the Scottish Wild cat is not a native wild animal, its just domestic cats that have filled a niche that was empty because the Lynx are gone.