Highland MSP helps launch wildcat website
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A HIGHLAND MSP has helped to launch a new website for Scottish Wildcat Action.
Labour MSP and wildcat champion Rhoda Grant was on hand for the unveiling of www.scottishwildcataction.org at the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh.
Scottish Wildcat Action, supported by the Scottish Government and Heritage Lottery Fund, is delivering the first national conservation plan to bring back viable populations of Scottish wildcats.
The new website has easy-to-use features which encourage people in the Highlands to report sightings, volunteer with fieldwork and register their interest to help.
Reacting to the news Dr Aileen McLeod, Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, said: "The Scottish wildcat is one of Scotland’s most endangered mammals and urgent action is needed to ensure they have a future.
"The Scottish Government is therefore committed to wildcat conservation and I am delighted to support the launch of this new website as part of the wider Scottish Wildcat Conservation Action Plan, which was launched by my predecessor, Paul Wheelhouse, in September 2013."
Rhoda Grant, a Highlands and Islands Labour MSP and Scottish wildcat species champion, said: "The Scottish wildcat is part of our heritage that we are desperately seeking to protect.
"We have a limited time to stop wildcats from disappearing but we also need to reduce the risks from hybridisation and disease from feral cats in the meantime.
"The website will offer members of the public the opportunity to be involved in this fantastic project to save this most beautiful of species and will, I am sure, prove to be an invaluable resource in ensuring the wildcat’s survival."
Dr Roo Campbell, Scottish Wildcat Action project manager for the work in wildcat priority areas, said: "Local sightings of all wild-living cats are key in our efforts to save Scottish wildcats and the new website will allow our local communities to report sightings.
"As part of our national work, our team of staff and volunteers will set up more than 400 trail cameras in wildcat priority areas to build up a picture of what’s out there, but public sightings will add valuable intelligence to this standardised monitoring."
Trail cameras are motion-sensitive field cameras used for monitoring shy species that live in remote places.
Numbers of Scottish wildcat are now so low that it is difficult for them to find and mate with other wildcats, so inevitably they have hybrid kittens with unneutered domestic cats.
Wildcat priority areas identified by Scottish Wildcat Action are Strathpeffer, Strathbogie, Northern Strathspey, the Angus Glens, Strathavon and Morvern.
