Wildcats on Hiatus

It won't be long until our wildcats start to think about breeding. Last year we had good success with both of our pairs producing healthy litters. One of our kittens has been donated to Wildwood Trust in Herne Bay to help keep their kitten of last year company, but this still leaves us with 9 wildcats at the Centre.

They have been difficult to re-home this year, and so the decision has been made to take a year out from breeding them and see how things stand next year. With all of our owls currently taking up our off display pens while their new aviaries are being built, this means we have had to tackle our cat problem from a different perspective. Having talked to our vet at great length, and not wanting to neuter any cat which may have potential for future breeding, we have decided to put the females on a contraceptive pill. Once our off display pens are free once again, we will be able to separate the cats until a time in which we can move them on to other collections.

Despite the disappointment of lack of kittens this year, wildcat conservation looks like it really could be moving in the right direction in 2014 with the plans I have heard about. I will mention more about these over the coming months.