If you have read The Red Paper 2022 Vol. 2 -Felids then you will be aware that contemporary accounts and studies by naturalists at the time put the extinction of the Old Scottish wild cat as circa the 1860s -a period during with red squirrels, Old fox types and other species also fell into the Gone Forever hole. The extinction of the Scottish wild cat in the 1860s was announced in 1895. Now we have problems.
Above a European wild cat (c)2024 respective copyright owner.
Why are there still wild cats in Scotland if they became extinct? Well we don't but do. There was a reason why hunting dogs were equipped with studded leather collars when 'sportsmen' went hunting; they were specifically hunting wild cats which at that time were large and would fatally injure or kill a dog(s) and if a hunter made a mistake he could join the dogs.
All of the old naturalist-'sportsmen' noted the decline in wild cats the same way they noted the decline in hares and Old fox types. However, they still made sure their own game keepers were killing them and Frank Buckland even reported on his game keepers cottage having a wall full of cat heads that had been killed (domestic as well as wild).
There is taxidermy evidence (see The Red Paper) that feral cats had crossed with wild cats in England up into the 1930s and I even gathered reports of wild cats typical of those seen in Scotland in Shropshire where the last female was killed in 1941. Now, despite the inaccurate claims of English wild cats dying out in the 16th or 17th century this was not true and in Wales one wild cat "had a go" at a hunter after a fox (long story).
There seemed to be a distinct6 colouration to the true wild cats and that was the yellowish or grey colouration -hence why Pennant in the 1700s termed it "The English Tiger" -a name later adapted for Scottish wild cats; "The Highland Tiger". The heads and ears of a true wild cat were distinctive and the Extinct Fox and Wild Cat Museum has samples (taxidermy) of these going back to the 1830s.
I have already posted about why the current "wild tabby" has been accepted as a true wild cat so I will not bore on that again. All I will write is that it was a cat type purchased from animal traders after being imported to England and these cats were sold off to travelling menageries and private collections and, like imported foxes, also to hunting areas.
If you go to wildlife parks or some zoos you will find the main four cats (as pairs) in the collections; black leopards, pumas, Lynx and wild cats. Now, firstly, black leopards are "extremely rare" we are told and yet there are so many in captivity so not that rare! Also, Scottish "wild cats" are a protected species and allegedly very rare so where are all the wild cats in collections coming from? Obviously the panthers as well as lynx and puma are being bred "somewhere" and the wild cats definitely are. In the early 1990s I discovered that wild cats were being released in different parts of the UK and not officially.
I also discovered, quite by accident, that wild cats of the European type ("as seen in Scotland") were being released into hunting territories in England. One person responded to this that it seemed unlikely since wild cats were "considered to be vermin" which shows a lack of knowledge. "Vermin" is a term only used by hunts to denote animals they can "have sport with" and kill. It was a term used as "beasts of the chase" slipped out of fashion. Why were hunters going out into remote areas with specially raised dogs and well protected with leather studded collars if not the hunt wild cats? It was 'sport' and 'fun' in a typical psychopathic way. The fight that the cat put up was what these people wanted and if a dog was killed or seriously injured another could be bought.
Landowners used to have hunting territories that someone could purchase a license to hunt in. Those areas had to be restocked because the shooting killed off a lot. One doctor (see The Red Paper) shot one wild cat in such a territory and had it stuffed and mounted and it took years of dead ends but I managed to get a photograph of the actual taxidermy as it still exists. The odd thing was that another shooter who mentioned he had shot similar in the same area confirmed it was the same type though he had not paid that much attention but picked the body up and threw it over a tree branch (just shooting and killing interest). However, it turned out that just outside of this hunting territory a pair of wild cats were caught and killed -in the 1920s and in an area where wild cats were supposedly killed off by the 18th century.
Then one line cropped up stating that the hunting country owner had "replenished hunting stock" to avoid very unhappy shooters who were paying good money to have things to kill. When you then start realising that the hybrids killed were in areas where there was hunting you do not have to be a genius to work out that "wild cats like you see in Scotland" were obviously releases and for no other reason than to afford some sport although the odd escape from private collections cannot be ruled out as another source.
We have feral cat populations in the UK (and elsewhere) that can be seen as modern wild cats but adapted to their environments. European wild cats are now being bred as "Scottish wild cats" and they are to be introduced NOT "re-introduced". Similar is taking place in other parts of England and possibly Wales -officially approved and not approved.
Let me try to make it clear to readers that the proclaimed Scottish wild cats are not the original species of wild cat and bear no resemblance to them. They are the descendants of European wild cats very likely released for hunting but which survived and filled the niche left by the Old wild cat. They are wild cats but introduced ones hence DNA testing identifying them as being the same species as in Europe.
Wild cats have been breeding with feral domestic cats for around a thousand years at least in the UK and in Europe even longer. The original British wild cat species would have been Wild Cat Prime. After domestic cats (not pets but working cats kept to keep down rodents) were introduced -they are not an "invasive species"- the resultant hybrid would have been Generation 2 living alongside Prime. In the 18th and 19th centuries (and in some earlier sources) it is made very clear that the wild cat "would have become extinct centuries ago" if not for the interbreeding with ferals.
So the true British wild cat ceased to exist a very long time ago with, perhaps, Prime types continuing in very remote areas in small numbers. That is my point. None of the cats currently being 'reintroduced' are true Old wild cats but descendants of some escapees and cats released for hunting.
But they are being raised as wild cats to fill a niche and, sadly, we already know that shooters are looking for areas they have been released into and no doubt vehicles will claim others. At the same time estate wardens/game keepers are killing wild cats just as they kill red squirrels and badgers -all protected species so until a law that is enforceable on private estates and which are followed through by police can be brought in the new wild cats will be dying off just as fast as the Old.
In Europe it is quite clear that wild cats have interbred with feral domestic cats and when one looks at Iberia it is even clearer -some photographs of Iberian wild cats look very much like the North African wild cat (F. lybica) which should not be surprising since, like genets, F. lybica were brought to Southern Europe during the time of the Moors . The Moors were Arabs from Arabia & peoples they had conquered - Egyptians, & Berbers from NW Africa) who had conquered most of what are now Spain, the Balearic Islands and Portugal, Sicily and the southernmost parts of Italy along with some of southern France in the 8th to 10th centuries. They are likely to be the people who introduced F. lybica in those areas of Europe and also gave them as gifts (or escapees) elsewhere.
Unfortunately, academics are invested in dogma so searching museum and other archives for very old taxidermy or pictorial evidence is ruled out. Money come from grants that continue dogma and does not shake up the established 'history' -as I have found this can lead to supposed respected persons being rude, insulting and dismissive and not even wanting to look at the evidence accumulated.#
Academia =money
Serious original research = zero
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