Brexit Threatens Lifeline for Endangered Scottish Wildcats

As of October 2025, a conservation project in Scotland is facing significant challenges in its efforts to breed and release endangered Scottish wildcats into the wild. The Saving Wildcats initiative, led by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS), has released 46 cats into the Cairngorms National Park over the past 3 years, with some of the female cats successfully producing litters of kittens in the wild.

However, the project now needs to find new ways to fund its critical work, as it can no longer access the European Union (EU) support it had previously relied on due to the UK's departure from the EU 5 years ago. According to Dr. Helen Senn, who heads up the Saving Wildcats project, "It takes huge amounts of time, expertise and resources to bring a species back from the brink and we can't do it alone."

The Scottish wildcat was described as "functionally extinct" in the wild in a major study published in 2018. Saving Wildcats is working to reverse this trend, but Dr. Senn says more cats need to be bred and released to give the species a "fighting chance" of survival in the wild. The project operates a Conservation Breeding for Release Centre at the RZSS's Highland Wildlife Park, where the wildcats are raised and monitored with GPS collars before being released.

Despite the challenges posed by Brexit, the Saving Wildcats team remains hopeful for the future of the species. As Dr. Senn notes, "Just a few years ago, the species was teetering on the edge of extinction in Scotland. Now we're watching them not only survive but start to raise their own kittens in the wild. That gives us real hope for the future."