That focuses on predation without examining the threat to native wildcats through hybridization, territorial competition, and disease transmission from domestic cats, which the IUCN cites as risks to wildcat species. If no outdoor cat ever killed another prey animal again, that still wouldn’t solve the threats they pose to wildcat species.
It’s funny how eugenics is widely accepted to be a bad thing when applied to humans, but for some reason “genetic purity” is still lauded for plants and animals.
The real threat to wildcats comes from humanity destroying their habitat (which is why the European wildcat, once endemic to the whole of Britain, is now only found in the north of Scotland). I’d personally imagine that hybridization is preferable to genetic extinction, as far as the wildcats themselves are concerned.
Also, like I said, Scottish wildcats are no longer found in the vast majority of Britain (through no fault of the domestic cat), so unless OP is in a particularly rural area of northern Scotland it’s a completely moot point either way.
Outdoor domestic cats and wildlife: How to overrate and misinterpret field data
My kid once calculated the percentage of birds killed by cats and it was something insane like 0.0007%. Shame I can’t find the calculion anymore.
That focuses on predation without examining the threat to native wildcats through hybridization, territorial competition, and disease transmission from domestic cats, which the IUCN cites as risks to wildcat species. If no outdoor cat ever killed another prey animal again, that still wouldn’t solve the threats they pose to wildcat species.
It’s funny how eugenics is widely accepted to be a bad thing when applied to humans, but for some reason “genetic purity” is still lauded for plants and animals.
The real threat to wildcats comes from humanity destroying their habitat (which is why the European wildcat, once endemic to the whole of Britain, is now only found in the north of Scotland). I’d personally imagine that hybridization is preferable to genetic extinction, as far as the wildcats themselves are concerned.
Also, like I said, Scottish wildcats are no longer found in the vast majority of Britain (through no fault of the domestic cat), so unless OP is in a particularly rural area of northern Scotland it’s a completely moot point either way.