We have to take a moment for the largest wild mammal in Britain, before it's too late.
The Scottish cat numbers have dwindled down to 400 and that's including the ones in captivity!! They were here before human kind and long before our domesticated cat had evolved. But soon our last large mammal predator will just be a statistic among the British Wolf and British Lynx.
One of the biggest problems is that our feral/domesticated cats are breeding with the Scottish Wildcat and diluting the species into extinction. So much so, that some specialists studying them have had as little as only 3 sightings of these cats in the 25 years of their career. They are extremely suspicious of humans it can be impossible to track clans and even more so the lone population of the cat's.
Infamous for being unable to be tamed a true wild cat. Once roaming over all of Britain's pastures they have been chased to the far corners of Scotland. Larger than the domesticated cat it hunts deer and Lamb. Of course there are old folk tales of them killing human beings. Dogs are the most common casualties. Many believe the fen tiger sightings in England are really the wildcat or the 'Kellas' its descendant which is jet black.
They eat nothing but meat and most of their water intake comes from meat too. In-fact if cats are fed a vegetarian diet they would go blind, so a killer instinct is rife. Ferocious, cats have been seen killing themselves to kill an eagle attacking their cubs nest. Their teeth are so sharp they are known to bite clean through a gauntlet or hand. If approached they hiss and their hackles raise but instead of trying to look big like our house cat's they mock charge, exactly what a big cat like a lion or tiger would do.
The wildcats brain has a third lobe at the front of the brain that acts as a spirit level. This is far more advance than the human's brain in this respect but probably comes in handy when you are trying to catch flying objects in the air.
Fortunately it seems there are some out there trying to save the small population left. Huge efforts are being made this year to try and get a better idea of how many are still true wildcats and how we can encourage their numbers. We need to act fast before they are forgotten forever!
pictures sourced from the Wikipedia website
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