Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Scotland’s tigers
PETER FROST goes hunting for one of the world’s rarest mammals — the Scottish wildcat
Scottish Wildcat

Some folk call them Scottish tigers — it’s not a bad name for one of the world’s most endangered animals. Forget your giant panda, Sumatran elephant, three-toed sloth or even the hairy wombat, when it comes to mammals on the edge of extinction, the Scottish wildcat is far rarer than any of them.

Experts estimate there may be only 35 pure-bred individuals left and only four or five small remote areas of the Highlands that are home to the wildcat.

This compares with fewer than 2,500 wild Bengal tigers and makes them 70 times rarer than the giant panda.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
fall
Book Review / 30 May 2025
30 May 2025

JOHN GREEN wades through a pessimistic prophesy that does not consider the need for radical change in political and social structures

UNEASY COHABITATION: Southern Ridges, Singapore, 2015 Pic: Zairon/CC
Science and Society / 21 May 2025
21 May 2025

Nature's self-reconstruction is both intriguing and beneficial and as such merits human protection, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT

 

Maiwene Barthelemy and Clément Faveau in Holy Cow
Cinema / 10 April 2025
10 April 2025
The Star's critics ANDY HEDGECOCK, MARTIN HALL, MICHAL BONCZA, ANGUS REID reviews Holy Cow, One to One: John and Yoko, King of Kings, Panda Bear in Africa