Scotland's cat; less than 400 remain...

Far back in the history of Scotland clans formed together under the image of the wildcat and fought wars for the independence of the land. Today less than 400 Scottish wildcats remain in the wild and the extinction of Britain's last large mammal predator could come within the next five years.

Welcome to the home of the Scottish Wildcat Association, a charitable organisation dedicated to protecting and conserving Britain's only remaining wild feline; the Scottish wildcat.

No angry tabby or feral the wildcat is a genuine wild species of cat; it was here long before we were and long before the domestic cat had even evolved. Infamously the only wild animal to be completely untameable, even when captive reared, Scottish wildcats may look a little like your pet cat but these are incredibly tough super-predators, sometimes called the Tiger of the Highlands.

Sadly, our wildcat is critically endangered with less than 400 individuals remaining in the wild and barely a handful in the captive breeding population. We carry out a wide range of campaigns and projects designed to rebuild and conserve the wildcat population across the Scottish Highlands through active fieldwork, support of scientific research, fundraising for the captive breeding programme and general public education and awareness.

On this website you can learn more about Scottish wildcats, our conservation projects and lots of ways you can get involved, from posting a banner on you website to helping raise money or volunteering your time.

Latest news and updates

3/7/2011; Summer update!
It's been a while since we had a chance to update and a full one will be coming soon; we've been buried in preparations for our Wildcat Haven fieldwork project which fully launches this coming winter, and may just be the beginning of saving the wildcat once and for all; we'll be back with a full update soon!

11/1/2011; New Year updates!

Wildcat Haven
Whilst a huge amount of our fieldwork had to be called off due to the ferocious weather, we have been making progress on the Wildcat Haven project, spending several weeks around western Lochaber explaining the project to people and listening to their thoughts which have been overwhelmingly positive and supportive. A small number of feral cats on a farm are being trapped and neutered at present and a huge number of camera traps are being deployed to confirm the locations of wildcats and ferals before next winter fieldwork when around 200 traps will be deployed to try to catch and neuter around 100 feral cats.

Website updates
We're currently working on a huge update of the website including the new section for Wildcat Haven so advance apologies for any brief silences or odd looking pages, everything should run smoothly and be looking nice by the end of the month; we're integrating some new features to ensure updates are more regular and everything ties together with our social profiles on websites like Facebook and Twitter.

T-shirts and other merchandise
We're hoping to have some t-shirts ready by early spring and plush toys around summer; the manufacturers have been working their way around suppliers all over the world to find a material that carries that "wildcat fur" look and seem to have finally tracked some down! There are also a couple of books on wildcats expected later this year from artist David Mayer, SWA chairman Steve Piper and studbook keeper Neville Buck, we'll be sure to update everything as things become available.

Wildcats on ITV
Keep a look out for a piece on Scottish wildcats on ITV Wednesday 12th as Nick Baker struggles against the blizzards and tries to get his head round our Wildcat Haven project; lots more wildcats on TV coming later in the year!

Check out the latest images in our Flickr pool!

Buy wildcat stuff, save Scottish wildcats!
All the items in our shop have pledged donations to the Scottish Wildcat Association for every sale; you can find Mike Tomkies books, David Mayer's beautiful wildcat bronze, first day stamp covers, art prints, Association merchandise or the Coffee Films DVD available with lots of new products being added in the near future, you can see a trailer for the DVD below!