Recently, an animal protection organization called Wildcat Haven in the United Kingdom used an infrared camera to photograph a 3-month-old Scottish wildcat cub in a forest in northwest Scotland.
Pictured: Scottish wildcat cubs captured by infrared cameras
The Scottish wildcat is the rarest subspecies of wildcat, with only about 35 wild individuals left, making it critically endangered. The Scottish wildcat cub is located in a forest called Clashiindarroch, where there are about 12 Scottish wildcats. Usually, it is extremely difficult for people to see them, even if it is arranged with infrared cameras, it takes a lot of effort to capture them. According to a head of the animal protection group, multiple infrared cameras were placed in the wild for two months before the Scottish wildcat was photographed.
Pictured: Scottish wildcat
Although only one was photographed, the news still excited the animal protection group's staff and those concerned about the fate of the Scottish wildcat – the Scottish wildcat cub represents hope for a population recovery. It is hoped that it will grow healthily and produce offspring by next year. The Scottish wildcat, however, and its companions face a great threat: habitat is being destroyed.
It turned out that the local government department was arranging to cut down trees in the Clashiindarroch forest for papermaking, and planned for large-scale wind farm development. These human activities will lead to a significant reduction in the habitat area of Scottish wildcats on the one hand, and affect the raising of young by Scottish wildcat mothers on the other hand. For example, logging creates a lot of noise that can cause Scottish feral cat mothers to be upset, causing them to abandon their cubs or even eat them. This was extremely detrimental to the growth and reproduction of Scottish wildcats.
To that end, the animal protection group's founder, Steve Piper, launched a petition online asking governments to stop cutting down the Clashindarroch Forest. As of October 25, 2020, the petition has been supported by 830,000 people.
About 10,000 years ago, Scottish wildcats lived in England. They once had a wide range of distributions, but during the Middle Ages, the British hunted the Scottish wildcats, causing their population to decline sharply. In the 1860s, the Scottish wildcat, which had not been seen for more than a decade, was considered extinct. Later, they were discovered again, but they were already very rare, and there was still a problem of hybridization with domestic cats, which was considered by zoologists to be functional extinction.