Captive wildcats sent to ‘training camp’ to equip them for life after release
Kittens learning to hunt by catching toys as part of a project to reintroduce the cats around Britain
WILDCATS are being taught to hunt toys at “kitten training camp” ahead of a major rewilding programme that will begin in two years, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.
Conservationists around the country are pinpointing the best areas to release the “Highland tiger”, which was once widespread in deciduous forests across the UK, but due to hunting and habitat loss has been pushed to the far reaches of Scotland. The numbers of cats there are dwindling towards extinction.
This will be the most ambitious rewilding programme ever undertaken in Britain, and the cat will be the first major predator to be put back into the wild. The first release is being planned in the Cairngorms in 2023, with kittens being bred and trained to kill rabbits in a special facility by scientists from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.
Wales will be next for a release, with conservationists planning to set wildcats free in forests, likely to be in the north of the country, in the next seven years. In England, a date has not been set, but specialists have met the Government and are surveying woods in Devon and Cornwall as potential sites for a release.
Before wildcats are set free, they have to be weaned off human attention. In enclosures and zoos, they come to behave like a wary domesticated pet, becoming accustomed to meal times.
It is illegal under animal welfare laws to provide them with live rabbits to catch, so animals earmarked for release are sent to special “training camps” near the proposed release area to learn how to hunt.
Zoologists have been working with scientists who successfully released lynx in Spain, as these big cats also had to be taught to catch their own food and not rely on humans. Helen Senn, head of conservation at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland, said: “What we are trying to do in terms of training is to mimic the natural conditions that these cats would encounter in the wild as much as possible, to give them the best chance once they are released into the wild.
“We can try to mimic the way an animal might have to hunt, or find food in the wild. So that would be doing things like randomising the time at which animals are fed, trying to dissociate animals from human presence. For example, putting food into a timed box, so that it’s not associating a human coming into the enclosure with being fed, or being fed at a certain time.”
She explained that the cats were taught to “chase and play across the enclosure” and “mimic hunting”, as well as learning patience and not associating humans with a positive reward, so they fear them in the wild and stay away.
Once released, the cats will be fitted with GPS collars and monitored, so scientists can track how they are coping.
‘What we are trying to do is to mimic the natural conditions that these cats would encounter in the wild, to give them the best chance once they are released’