The European wildcat population in Scotland is considered
critically endangered as a result of hybridization with introduced
domestic cats, though the time frame over which this gene flow has
taken place is unknown.
Quadrupeds
by Bewick as well as many other sources (see The Red
Paper 2022 Vol. II: Felids)
it is quite clearly stated that the British wild cat has only
survived up to the 18th/19th centuries due to interbreeding with
domestic cats. It was believed at that time that interbreeding had
started taking place probably after the Roman conquest of Britain
(this is dealt with in more detail in The Red Paper
Felids).
The biggest problem here is that the term “European wild cat” is
used. The DNA does indeed match the European wild cat for a very
simple reason; they were imported into the UK for many private as
well as travelling menageries as well as for sport -we have at least
three pairs “turned down” (released) in North of England shooting
territories in the 1920s. Wild cats escaped and there is enough
anecdotal evidence as well as taxidermy to prove that wild cvats were
in England and hybridising in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s.
Some
of the most noted zoologists/naturalists and ‘sportsmen’
(hunters/shooters) on visiting museum collections in the late 1800s
and early 1900s reported how they saw no true wild cat specimens but
only hybrids and they used well established wild cat diagnostic
features to show this. I
have not found one UK museum with any taxidermy of what we define as
true wild cats and all were acquired -/+1900. A meeting of Scottish
naturalists and zoologists in 1897 declared that what would have been
called the true Scottish wild cat had become extinct by the 1860s
(Red Paper Felids).
The only collection of genuine Scottish wild cats I know of is the
Extinct Fox and Wild Cats Museum and these are specimens from the
1830s when the species was becoming rare.
Via
contemporary records, and many exist and are not hard to find, we can
date wild cat-feral domestic hybridisation having been known and
recorded as far back as the Medieval period but more ‘modern’
accounts exist from the 18th
century and that is a date
well beyond the claimed
“ onset of
hybridization was only within the last 70 years” (ie.
1953)
Here, using
genome data from modern, museum, and ancient samples, we
reconstructed the trajectory and dated the decline of the local
wildcat population from viable to severely hybridized. We demonstrate
that although domestic cats have been present in Britain for over
2,000 years, the onset of hybridization was only within the last 70
years.
The question is where did the “ancient samples” come from
-Europe? If so then they cannot be relevant to the Scottish wild cat.
Britain was isolated from continental Europe over 10,000 years ago
when Doggerland was submerged. Foxes, wolves and wild cats remained
isolated and not affected by island dwarfism. We know that foxes had
developed three types to survive in their specific habitats -the
Greyhound or mountain fox (the largest), the Hill or mastiff fox
(smaller than the former but of sturdy build) and the Common or cur
fox -small and living near to human settlements. The counterpart to
the Old fox existed in Western Europe until hunting allowed the red
fox to move in.
We need far more research on the Western European wild cats but it is
possible that they were similar to those in Britain the size and
power of which were legendary and even packs of dogs sent to hunt a
wild cat were given leather studded collars to prevent them being
killed. Wild cats were noted for their size and when still to be
seen in England were known as “The English Tiger” as term later
used for the Scottish wild cat -”The Highland Tiger” which
indicated that the centuries of ‘sporting’ eradication as well as
wiping out local populations for the bounties paid had pushed the
true Scottish cat further north. What is seen today is the same as
what we see in the red fox -imported animals that were released or
escaped and due to various factors (Red Paper Felids)
became known as the Scottish wild cat.
Our analyses
reveal that the domestic ancestry present in modern wildcats is
markedly over-represented in many parts of the genome, including the
major histocompatibility complex (MHC). We hypothesize that
introgression provides wildcats with protection against diseases
harbored and introduced by domestic cats, and that this selection
contributes to maladaptive genetic swamping through linkage drag.
Using the case of the Scottish wildcat, we demonstrate the importance
of local ancestry estimates to both understand the impacts of
hybridization in wild populations and support conservation efforts to
mitigate the consequences of anthropogenic and environmental change.
There is no true existing Scottish wild cat and has not been one
since the 1860s and what is now called the Scottish wild cat has been
surviving by breeding with feral domestic cats and both
are snared, shot and killed in other ways on private estates despite
legal ‘protection’[ for the former and just a survey I carried
out two years ago on Scottish wild life groups showed how ‘diagnostic
features’ were argued about “A short tail and it’s a wild cat”
and “No, a short tail is proof of a hybrid” and for that reason
gamekeepers and others can kill the cats with impunity because “no
one can prove a cat is a genuine wild cat”. The
feral domestic cat has been keeping what we now know as Scottish
wild cats going as a population for a long time and the idea of a
“pure blood” is something of a fantasy. Any cats released now as
Scotti8sh wild cats will still be under threat while they and feral
domestics can be killed with impunity.
Here,
we generated and analyzed whole-genome sequence data to date the
onset of significant hybridization in Britain and assess potential
consequences for wildcats carrying introgressed
domestic
cat DNA.Our data comprised domestic cats, 30 wild living individuals
from Scotland sampled across the hybrid swarm, and six wildcats from
the UK captive population (founded on wild animals from Scotland).
Seven additional wildcat samples were obtained from Germany and
Portugal. We also made use of low-coverage, whole-genome sequence
data
from
historicandarchaeological samples, specifically fourputative Scottish
wildcats (museum specimens sampled 1906–1939, 0.3– 4.73) and two
archaeological samples from Medieval (16th century, 0.93) and
Mesolithic Britain (8,459–8,272 cal. BP, 0.23).3 Additional
low-coverage genomic data (0.02–0.073) were obtained from 20
museum samples of putative Scottish wildcats.
Really
the Mesolithic specimens would not show a great deal when compared to
the current Scottish wild cat. DNA wo9uld probably work better on the
oldest and specimens prior to the 1860s.
This
study is interesting but has major flaws in that it appears that no
historical documents, papers or books were consulted that might have
given a better informed appraisal of the study material. If there is
no knowledge of the historical records, of the mass importation of
wild cats (and other species found in the UK due to the original
animals being killed off by hunting -the red squirrel rather like the
Old foxes and wild cats were amongst the species hunting killed off
by the 1860s and hares, foxes, wild cats, deer and others were
imported so any modern DNA testing will show a match to European
species).
Without
the basic knowledge that wild cats in the UK survived up until the
1860s because of
hybridisation and without Old wild cat specimens the study means
nothing. Wild cats from Germany and Portugal are not
from the Old isolated British population of wild cats but on a
continent where a species can spread out they would mat6cvh up with
the European wild cat we see today -again there is no reference to
wild cats being trapped and transported to other countries for
repopulating or sport and that is very significant
information that is needed prior
to carrying out a study such as this.
An
interesting read but not the claimed breakthrough study as reported
online and in the media. We still know nothing of the true British
(Scottish, Welsh and English) wild cats
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