WILDCAT conservationists are at odds over claims that an isolated population of pure Scottish wildcats has been discovered in Aberdeenshire.

Wildcat Haven Enterprises, a community interest company which sells ownership of one square foot plots of Scottish land online, this week announced that it had identified a small population of 'very high purity' wildcats in the east Highlands - an area where, it insisted, 'most experts' had declared the species absent.

However, those experts, in the shape of Scottish Wildcat Action, a national partnership of 20 organisations led by Scottish Natural Heritage, have retorted that the area in question has long been under scrutiny, and the presence of wildcats was 'not news'. 

Wildcat Haven Enterprise's claims were based on video footage secured by its local project officer Kevin Bell, which it described as showing the "first living wildcat to score full marks on a 21-point scale used to identify wildcat purity"; a finding allegedly verified by an independent expert at the National Museums of Scotland.

“We've been closely monitoring key sites in Aberdeenshire over the last couple of years having picked up good accounts of an isolated population in the area,” explained WHE's Dr Paul O'Donoghue.

“SNH have already spent a huge sum of money carrying out survey work in the region turning up little of real value, but Kev went out with just three camera traps and immediately started returning images of these stunning cats.

“No one has ever seen a wildcat this good in the wild before, it shows no signs of hybridisation and proves that Scotland’s iconic wildcat, an incredible survivor, is still out there despite all odds," said Dr O'Donoghue. 

"We must protect it from the threat of hybridisation, but also from the government action plan; licensed to capture wildcats for a captive breeding program which has a dismal track record of producing hybridised and neutered display animals," he added.

In response to both the WHE claim and the attached criticism, a spokesman for Scottish Wildcat Action said: “The press release from Wildcat Haven is misleading. Scottish Wildcat Action has already been working with the local community in its Strathbogie ‘Priority Area’ for over two years. Therefore this latest claim is certainly not news to Scottish Wildcat Action, our team of professional, dedicated and hard-working Project Officers, and the many partner organisations we work with.

"In autumn last year we detected 27 cats, six of which were identified as wildcat based on their pelage scores. These cats were found in our Strathbogie wildcat priority area in Aberdeenshire. This information was publicly announced in September 2016 and was reported in the media. Since then a further four wildcats have been discovered in the area, taking the total of known wildcats to 10."

“Scottish Wildcat Action continues its work to protect one of Scotland’s most endangered species," he added. "Our work in Aberdeenshire has already involved the trapping, neutering and release of almost 100 cats, in an area we know to be close to a wildcat population.

“In addition to our extensive field work we feel it’s vital that we have the support of the Scottish wildcat conservation breeding programme and studbook through Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. This is another important conservation tool available to Scottish Wildcat Action and one that may be needed if we are to save the species from extinction."

Responding to WHE's assertion that National Museums Scotland had verified its video as evidence of a 'high purity' wildcat population in Aberdeenshire, its Principal Curator of Vertebrate Biology, Dr Andrew Kitchener, said: "I welcome the opportunity to look at any evidence of the Scottish wildcat in the wild and regularly examine evidence brought to my attention by members of the public or conservation groups.

“Wildcat Haven approached me to comment on this video footage, which shows one cat in the wild. The animal displays a number of characteristics of the Scottish wildcat, however not all of the characteristics which are used to identify the Scottish wildcat are visible in the video."

Dr Kitchener also said the purity of any suspected Scottish wildcat could only be confirmed definitively through genetic testing, which had not been carried out on this particular animal.

“While the cat in this video shows a high number of characteristics of the Scottish wildcat, there is not yet sufficient evidence to fully determine its purity," he said. “Since the video shows one cat, it is also not sufficient evidence of a ‘population’ of pure Scottish wildcats.”