News Scottish Wildcat going extinct

[rynnor]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-22610869

Interestingly the scottish wildcat's status as a seperate species is actually seriously disputed - the International Union for the Conservation of Nature dropped it recently based on genetic analysis that showed it was just a population of Felis silvestris - wildcats that live throughout Europe.

The BBC seems blissfully unaware of this

 

[Raven]

It's mostly feral domestic cat now anyway.

Just like the BBC is mostly poorly researched non-stories.

 

[rynnor]

It's mostly feral domestic cat now anyway.

That's what he means by extinct though - there are probably more now than there have been in decades its just they are mostly hybrids although since domestic cats are also domesticated from felix silvestris its hard to build up a large panic about it.

 

[Raven]

Yep, they could just dump a bunch of feral cats in the wild and nobody would notice any difference. My feral cat hunts, kills and eats the same food as them, rabbits, pigeons, the odd magpie.