I’m David Hetherington and I’m in charge of the Cairngorms Wildcat Project. I’ll be posting here regularly to keep you up to date with wildcat news from the Caingorms. I’ll be telling you about the developments in this unique project and what’s happening on the ground to help wildcats. Stay tuned!
20 May 2010 : Scottish Wildcat Survey 2006-08
The recently published Scottish Wildcat Survey, which was commissioned by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), one of the partners of the Cairngorms Wildcat Project, confirms the Cairngorms National Park as a stronghold for the Scottish wildcat, with other significant occurrences elsewhere in northeastern Scotland and in parts of the western Highlands. The survey report can be downloaded from the SNH website here, although it is a large file and may take a while.
19 May 2010 : Talk in Ballater on Saturday 22nd
Just a wee note to say I'll be giving a public talk about the Cairngorms Wildcat Project in Ballater this Saturday at 6pm in the Victoria & Albert Hall. The event is part of the Cairngorms Big Biobuzz Day.
19 May 2010 : All creatures great and small
It's been a while since the last update but the all the while the
camera traps have been quietly getting on with their job of snapping
the local wildlife. With the help of the gamekeeper, I've set up cameras on an estate in Donside and the Project recently got its first photos of badger (see above) and
hedgehog. Although we had wildcats in mind, we've now built up an
impressive and growing list of wildlife by-catch on our camera traps across the National Park,
including the golden eagle featured in a previous blog-post. Since
camera-trapping started early in the year, we've recorded the following:
Wildcat, Feral cat, Badger, Pine marten, Stoat, Otter, Fox, Brown hare, Mountain hare, Rabbit, Hedgehog, Wood mouse, Red deer, Roe deer, Black grouse, Pheasant, Golden eagle, Great tit, Raven.
20 April 2010 : Fantastic media coverage for the Highland Tiger!
It has been a fantastically successful week for raising awareness about the plight of the Scottish wildcat. Following on from coverage in many UK newspapers and on the web about the launch of the new first class postage stamp, there was a great double page spread about wildcat conservation in the Observer newspaper on Sunday. And then on Monday things went ballistic when the BBC had an article about our camera-trapping endeavours on their news website. By mid morning the article was the third most read and the second most shared on the entire BBC news website, beaten only by the travel chaos across Europe caused by an erupting volcano! By late Monday afternoon the wildcat article had been visited over 750,000 times, with 25% of visitors coming from outwith the UK! As well as BBC radio and TV coverage, the story was picked up by several UK newspapers and even more websites around the world. Brilliant stuff which all helps in the fight to save the wildcat from extinction. The more people who know about wildcats, the more people who care. And the more people who care, the easier it is to achieve successful conservation of the species. It helps create a solid public knowledge-base on which important, more specific messages can be built - e.g. the need for responsible cat ownership.
16 April 2010 : Postponed to Monday!
Perhaps not surprisingly, an Icelandic volcano making northern Europe a no-fly zone is dominating the news here in Scotland and elsewhere, so the wildcat coverage has now been postponed by the BBC until Monday.
