In Scotland the wildcat became extinct in the Lothians before 1800 and by 1830 it was absent from almost the whole of the south of Scotland and from Nairn, Moray and Banff. In Dumfries and Galloway, the last wildcat was killed at Balmaangan in 1810 or 1820. The final wildcat bastion in the south was Berwickshire where they had been numerous in the 1800s, the last animal being sighted near Old Cambus in 1849. By 1882, there were no wildcats to the south of Argyll and Perthshire, where they were confined to the most remote and mountainous regions. The last wildcat in Aberdeenshire was killed in 1875 in Glen Tanar, and by 1882 the wildcat was becoming scare in Inverness-shire. Only in the far north, in Ross, Cromarty and Sutherland was it still abundant. In 1887 the wildcat was reported to be declining in Sutherland and in 1904 it was regarded as rare in Ross. In 1920 the wildcat was reported to be still present in Wester Ross, Sutherland, Inverness and Argyll, but the authors were not optimistic about its future. The wildcat looked set to follow the polecat and disappear from the list of Scottish fauna.
Ironically, it was the outbreak of war which ultimately saved the Scottish wildcat from extinction, when many gamekeepers left the estates to fight in Flanders in 1914. Since the end of the war there has been a gradual decrease in activity by gamekeepers and the wildcat has been spreading south again. Unfortunately, records for this post-war period are sparse compared to the intense interest in Natural History which characterized the Victorian and Edwardians eras. However, from the available records it is clear that the wildcat reacted very quickly to the relaxation of persecution. By 1919 the wildcat had become re-established in Perthshire after an absence of 19 years and by 1935 it had recolonised Stirlingshire, Banffshire, and Dunbartonshire. It reappeared in Moray, Nairn and Aberdeenshire between 1920 and 1946, and Kincardineshire and Angus between 1946 and 1962.
The wildcat has also started to expand south of the Clyde and Forth with a sighting just 40 miles from Edinburgh in 1963 and another in Lanarkshire in 1971.The wildcat had survived the threat to its existence, which was posed by game keeping and is now protected by law. However, the wildcat is still under threat from another animal - the domestic cat. Interbreeding between domestic cats and the wildcat is believed by many to be a recent problem. The British Nature Conservancy Council reported on its study into interbreeding and concluded that as a result of less intense persecution, wild cats were increasing in Scotland, where they had been all but exterminated by 1900. However, as long as wildcats were confined to remote areas their genetic integrity was probably secure, as the wildcats were unlikely to come into contact with domestic cats.
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