‘Real hope’ for future of wildcats after another 18 released in Highlands

Experts have said there is “real hope for the future” of wildcats in Scotland after 18 were released in the Highlands this year.

The animals were released into the Cairngorms National Park this summer by the Saving Wildcats partnership, which is led by wildlife conservation charity the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS).

It is the third year in a row that wildcats have been released into the Highlands, and the release this summer brought the total number of animals set free to 46.

Some of the females now living in the wild successfully produced litters in the spring and summer of 2024 and 2025, which experts said provides hope for wildcats.

The animals, also dubbed the Highland tiger, were declared functionally extinct in Britain in 2019.

Helen Senn, Saving Wildcats project lead at RZSS, said: “Just a few years ago, the species was teetering on the edge of extinction in Scotland.

“Now we’re watching them not only survive but start to raise their own kittens in the wild. That gives us real hope for the future.

“However, to give wildcats a fighting chance, we must keep breeding and releasing more animals into the wild and continue to look after the population already present in the landscape until it can successfully survive on its own.

“Small, recently reintroduced populations are highly vulnerable to threats like road mortality, interbreeding with feral domestic cats, fire and extreme weather events.”

The first 19 wildcats were released into Cairngorms National Park in June 2023 and a further nine were released last year.

Saving Wildcats said as the project continues more funding is needed, particularly as after Brexit it is no longer eligible to benefit from the EU LIFE Programme, which has so far made a significant contribution to the initiative.

Dr Senn said: “It takes huge amounts of time, expertise and resources to bring a species back from the brink and we can’t do it alone.

“We are committed to looking after this newly established population and maintaining the connections with the local community that we have built-up during the project.

“We would love to hear from anyone keen to support wildcat restoration.”

Saving Wildcats is a partnership project led by RZSS in collaboration with NatureScot, Forestry and Land Scotland, Cairngorms National Park Authority, Nordens Ark and Junta de Andalucia.