I gatti selvatici europei, un tempo estinti, torneranno in Inghilterra

IMHO exceptionally positive news.

Mid-Devon, mainly Dartmoor should be a productive and large enough area to generate an MVP Wildcat self-sustaining and positive breeding group.

However, the massive problem is hybridization with feral ”domestic” cats and indeed with domestic pet cats and unless this issue is resolved it could jeopardize the entire project.

Fundamentally as with the Highlands, neutering of cats would be needed and essential imho. Feral cats should be neutered or removed especially.

>*””They say wildcats live on voles. Well, voles are feeding my barn owls so if you reduce the vole population you are having an effect on the barn owls,” he explained.”*

Sounds like reasonable thought process and so you can appreciate the genesis of concern but the way prey predator dynamics actually works is “predator numbers FOLLOW prey numbers” so for example good conditions lead to a boom in vole numbers which in subsequent years will positively impact on breeding and rearing success of say Wildcats who disperse across the area raising their population slightly but because they live in low density due to energy flow reduction upwards in food pyramids the population increase both lags and is much smaller relative to voles. More Wild cats are temporarily able to survive albeot this also depends on other food sources, in Wild Cat terms with reintroduction it means more successful dispersal from their population source into other areas.

Equally a bad year for say voles or rabbits means lower breeding success in Wild Cats subsequently and their number in an area temporarily may freeze or drop.

The end result is the Cats do very little to actually impact the Vole numbers which is much more closely linked to positive or negative climate and food conditions and disease cycles AND very importantly the quality of habitat for their survival and breeding needs eg old fields with plenty of grass diversity and tussocks for shelter etc, same with Wild Cats needing quality of habitat hence total land area for Nature is so Impactful at scale.

Back to hybridization – really serious conversations on pet cats is needed and this also flows into their ecological damage to bird life due to sheer density and numbers of these (you won’t get this in wild cats as territorial and solitary vs time keeping shared density in pet and feral cats).

The resident domestic cat population already sits, very heavily, on the rodent, bird and amphibian food supply.

There’s an excellent book about this subject called Wild Cats Revenge by Claude Balls

Have they bred the pspspsps out of it or can I still get one like that?