It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Welcome to the Save the Scottish Wildcat website, a resource on all things wildcat and supporter of the Wildcat Haven fieldwork project to save the species in the West Highlands of Scotland.
No feral or farmcat, the wildcat is a true wild species of cat just like a tiger or leopard; it was here long before we were and long before the domestic cat had first been bred by ancient farmers. Infamously the only wild animal to be untameable even when captive reared and one of the most elusive creatures in the world, Scottish wildcats may look a little like your pet tabby but these are incredibly tough super-predators capable of surviving Scotland's harshest winters, battling eagles and drawing the admiration of men who bested entire empires.
In 1988, a local gamekeeper shot a cat in the Dufftown area of Morayshire, and this specimen was sent to Di Francis, via Tomas Christie's gamekeeper, Mr Colin Barclay.
In outward appearance the cat did not look like the normal Kellas cat specimens. Whilst of a large size, it lacked the white primary guard hairs and chest patch. The specimen was an adult male, with adult sized testes. The specimen had a pronounced 'roman-nose', and sported large upper canine teeth.
Francis likened the head of the cat to a rabbit, such that the name stuck. Francis was convinced at the time that the specimen represented another previously unknown species of cat, native to Scotland. She was convinced other specimens would turn up.
originally posted by: Kester
a reply to: LadyGreenEyes
Reports of injuries here are very rare, fortunately.
Occasionally a skeptic has an encounter themselves, then they become wide-eyed. Some very vocal sceptics may be actually deliberately defending the cats by deflecting attention, this is suspected of one of the skeptics on YouTube.
There are many reports of cougars outside their 'official' boundaries and big black cats such as we have here. In Australia the same sightings are made, cougars and black cats. It's a complex subject with few easy answers.
www.outdoorlife.com...
www.australianbigcats.com...
originally posted by: MarsIsRed
Other north Kent sightings (apparently Medway is a hotspot, of sorts): www.kentonline.co.uk...