Born to be wild

November 2005

by Richard Hammock

It all started when a friend appeared at the back door with the news that one of our cats was lying injured at the roadside, a few hundred metres away. My wife, Lynn, jumped into our friend’s car and set off to the scene of the accident.

Sure enough, there on the grass verge was a brown tabby cat which at a distance looked like one of ours – we have two brothers, one brown tabby and one grey tabby, ex-ferals with strong hints of wildcat ancestry. But the moment my wife picked up the cat she could see and feel that this was not ours. It was too thin and light and had stronger striped markings. The cat was clearly concussed, was bleeding from the mouth and had a nasty gash across its hind quarters. Lynn, who has converted from not liking cats to loving them with the intensity of a zealot, decided to take it to the local vet.

Off they set with the cat wrapped in a sweater on my wife’s lap. The vet sedated the cat and put it on a drip, but the initial assessment of its prospects was not good. In addition to concussion, there was a wound to its hindquarters which had scalped fur and skin across a wide area, plus the possibility of internal injuries. The vet remarked that the cat seemed generally in poor condition; if it lasted the night we could assess its prospects of recovery.

The following morning the vet called to say that the cat had survived, but on closer examination it was clear that this was no domestic cat; if it was feral it had a strong wildcat strain. It would not be easy to treat, if it were to recover. The cat was female, perhaps as old as 10, and had had a lot of kittens. It was in poor shape, which led him to suggest that it had been scavenging for road kill when it was struck by a passing car.

Over the next few day the animal began to show signs of recovery, but caused us concern because it would not eat cat food. Every time anyone went near, it flattened its ears and hissed. Eventually a retired medical friend with an interest in wildlife volunteered to take the cat home to supervise its recovery.

We arranged a supply of rabbits, pigeons and pheasants – lucky girl – a far better cuisine than she had been used to in the wild. The cat made quick progress and shook off the concussion which had left her cross-eyed for a while, and was wormed and injected.

Eventually the staples which had been holding her wound together had to be removed. The vet tried to dart her, but ended up having to corner her with a piece of wood and inject her through the bars of the dog cage she was confined to. By this time she was growling and swiping her paw at everyone, just to let us know she meant business.

We were now convinced we had a Scottish Wildcat (Felis silvestris) on our hands, but the question was, how genetically pure was it? To answer the question we asked a wildlife expert from Bristol University, who in turn sent pictures of the cat to a wildcat expert in Edinburgh. We took some samples for DNA analysis, but the test was never performed because the Bristol University department with which we had been dealing suddenly ran out of funds and was closed.

The Edinburgh expert, however, who worked from photographs, said that whilst it was in the general sense a wild cat, and was purer than many examples of Scottish Wildcats in wildlife centres and zoos, it was not pure. It was a hybrid, or more accurately a cross-breed, having domestic cat genes. This assessment is based on morphology, the use of physical characteristics to arrive at conclusions. For wildcats this can be very difficult, and tends to be based on how much white there is in the coat, how distinctive the dark stripes are, and the length and thickness of the tail.

In trying to find out more about the provenance of ‘our’ cat we came across the issue central to the preservation of the Scottish Wildcat. Since 1988 pure wildcats are protected from persecution under the 1981 Wildlife & Countryside Act. Experts have differing opinions about the best method of identifying purity, though, and for the layman it is practically impossible. Hence in 1990 a prosecution at Stonehaven for shooting three wildcats failed because the expert called could not say with certainty that the animals killed were true, pure wildcats.

Some authorities question the whole notion of purity, purporting that wildcats have been interbreeding with domestic cats since man first adopted his feline friend.

Others refer to the standard wildcat, the Invermoriston cat, against which others have been judged for purity. It was trapped at Invermoriston in 1907 and presented to the British Museum as the true example of a Scottish Wildcat. The problem is that this cat may have been tainted by domestic cat genes, or it may simply be one of a variety of wild cat types in terms of its colouring and appearance.

Thus if you judge all others against one cat, you are proving only that there are other cats that look like it in the wild, but not proving the essential purity of its genetic inheritance.

But undoubtedly, living wild in Scotland, is a type of cat which looks like the popular conception of a wildcat, hunts its own food and is not amenable to being even semi-domesticated, unlike many feral cats.

It seems to me – not withstanding the problems of identifying what is a pure wildcat and what simply looks like a wildcat – that we do have something here which is natural to our forests and moors, and which should be treated with tolerance and concern.

What of our own cat? Those of us who had cared for her recognised that she had to be released back into the wild to take her chances. We were sure she was stronger and healthier than before her accident, but we did not know to what extent she had recovered her mobility and hence her ability to hunt successfully. So one fine spring morning we took her in her cage to the edge of the woods where she had been sighted in the past and not far from where my wife had found her, several weeks before.

We opened her cage door and at first she seemed reluctant to go through it. Eventually, turning to give us one last defiant hiss, she leapt out and bounded off into the trees. We were sure we had done the right thing, but often wondered if she was able to fend for herself, or if we had released her to a slow death from starvation.

Some months later, I was driving nearby when I saw a movement in the long grass at the edge of the road. I stopped and reversed slowly, just in time to see a tigerish face and tabby body disappear into the bushes. Was it ‘our’ cat?

Talking to someone else who often takes the same road early in the morning, it appears that a similar cat had been seen several times. As these appearances were on the territory we knew she had been on previously, near where we had released her, and as I had noticed fewer rabbits than usual around a nearby warren, I think it was her, surviving on her old ground.

Given her age and the trauma she had gone through, not least close contact with us humans, it was a remarkable survival. She may not survive the trials of winter, but we feel it was worthwhile to give a truly wild cat the opportunity of another summer of freedom. Whether she was a pure Felis silvestris or a cross breed, she and her like add to the diversity of our wildlife. Their need for freedom, and defiance of those who they fear will call to those of us who feel the same.

It was not for nothing that Clan Chattan chose the cat as their symbol, nor is the motto ‘Touch not the cat bot a glove’ – bot meaning without – to be taken lightly, as ‘our’ cat’s handlers will testify.

After a career spent managing businesses, RICHARD HAMMOCK now spends his time helping to run charitable organisations, being a community councillor, campaigning against the uncontrolled proliferation of commercial windfarms and in enjoying outdoor pursuits.

This is an article from the November 2005 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, subscribe to Leopard Magazine.