Monday 20th January 2020

I head to Zurich train station, to catch a train to Horgen, to visit Dr Marianne Hartmann. As promised, Marianne is easy to spot, as she is accompanied by her long-haired black shepherd dog. We hop in the car and head off to her wildcat captive breeding facility.

Marianne has over 25 years experience in raising wildcats in captive facilities, stemming from her PhD studies. Her aim was to develop a housing system for wildcats where they could perform their natural behaviours without developing behavioural disturbances.

Currently, eleven wildcats are at the facility which are kept in family groups. The large enclosures are 370m² and the smaller ones 150m² .

Wildcats appear to be very sensitive to humans, they are highly demanding, requiring a variety of structures and stimuli. The arrangement of these features is complex and dependent on a range of other factors which influence their use e.g. where the enclosure door is situated.

As well as providing a variety of food and altering the feeding times of the wildcats to keep them stimulated a computer controlled feeding system is used. Food is placed into a series of ‘feeding boxes’ throughout the facility which are located in a number of different features, at differing heights and are randomly opened. The wildcats have to actively find their food.

Marianne aims to ensure that wildcats bred at her facility to be used in reintroduction programmes are fit; physically, mentally and genetically.

We then discuss the reintroduction project that Marianne was involved in in Germany, whereby nearly 600 wildcats were released into three different regions of Bavaria between 1984-2008. The animals used for the captive breeding programme were sourced from three different areas, the majority were from the Harz mountains, with the rest from the western German population and the Czech Republic.

Almost, all of the wildcats were soft released into broadleaved woodland, at the same release sites, to enable the wildcats to establish territories and crucially find each other to establish populations. After 10 years the method was changed as territories were becoming full, so wildcats were placed on the edge of the range in large wooden boxes that they had become accustomed to in their captive breeding facilities. The final stage of the release involved selecting specific animals targeted for genetic reasons, to be hard released in certain areas, to further increase genetic diversity within the populations and prevent inbreeding.

In the initial phase of the release programme no related animals were released and more females were released than males. The ratio of males to females in later years moved to 1:1.

At the start of the release programme wildcats were released in the autumn at the time when the juveniles would naturally start to disperse. However, this resulted in road mortality as the start of the activity period (dusk) of the wildcats coincided with the evening rush hour at this time of year. The timing of releases was then changed to May-July to avoid this scenario.

As opposed to many captive breeding facilities, Marianne ensures that her breeding animals are habituated to humans for practical reasons, as they have to be able to undergo medical checks and be treated as necessary. The wildcats for release are not subject to human socialising during the imprinting phase (as kittens) as a minimum. However, it has been demonstrated that the stress of transportation and the ‘release phase’ breaks all bonds with the human keeper and the wildcats do not imprint on any humans that they have not been in regular contact with.

We discuss appropriate places to source a founder population from and for captive breeding in the UK and Marianne agrees with all the other experts that I have talked to in both Switzerland and Germany, that wildcats should be sourced from a country/countries with a similar ecotype as the UK, shouldn’t be from an isolated population, must be genetically diverse and not highly introgressed (hybridised). As well as trying to retain some of what is left of the ‘pure wildcats’ in Scotland by breeding with these animals to an extent.

We also discuss the numbers required to try to prevent hybridisation and the difficulty in achieving those numbers. As well as site selection for release to reduce the risk of hybridisation.

I thoroughly enjoyed my day with Marianne, watching the wildcats soaking up the winter sunshine, my notebook is bursting with information.

Please note I cannot share any photo’s taken within the facility.