Captive-bred Scottish wildcats give birth in wild

A captive-bred female wildcat with her kittens in the Cairngorms National Park

Scottish wildcats bred in captivity and then released into the Cairngorms National Park have had kittens.

The births are a first for the Saving Wildcats project led by Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS).

Last summer, 19 wildcats raised at RZSS' Highland Wildlife Park, near Aviemore, were released into the UK's largest national park. At least two females have given birth.

The captive-bred cats are tracked by GPS radio collars fitted to them before release, and the mothers and kittens have since been filmed.

A captive-bred female wildcat pictured before the birth of kittens in the Cairngorms National Park

Once the kittens are old enough, attempts will be made to get a DNA profile from them.

RZSS hopes they are the offspring of male wildcats that were released last year, and not feral domestic cats.

Before the wildcats were released, RZSS and its partner organisations trapped, neutered, vaccinated and released any feral domestic cats they could find in the local area.

Conservationists feared the species was on the verge of extinction in 2018.

Loss of habitat, breeding with feral cats and disease has been among the main threats to the Scottish wildcat.

Dr Keri Langridge, Saving Wildcats field manager, said: “We have taken extreme care not to disturb the mother and kittens, and we carry out all monitoring work under licence from NatureScot.

“We didn’t dare to dream that we would have wildcat kittens in the first year of releases, and seeing those kittens on the video was the most exciting moment of the project so far."