Friday, May 24, 2013

Near extinction

The Scottish wildcat is near extinction, with estimates from 300 to 35 left.

Their kittens look very much like the cute little kittens we play with, but I gather these will attempt to take your face off given half a chance. The people who lived in close proximity to wildcats did not acquire the same love for the creatures that people at a safe distance feel for such rare animals.

People have been trying to exterminate them for over a thousand years, without much success, but now they finally seem seem to be going under.

The secret weapon? Undiscriminating sex.

They look like housecats, and it turns out they successfully breed with housecats, and as a result there are plenty of hybrids but not so many pureblood wildcats. One group of researchers was proposing to capture wildcats and isolate them in a breeding colony, but a) he's going to find it hard to keep volunteers intact and b) the population would have to be forever captive unless he can figure a way to explain to the wildcats that they should only have sex with other wildcats.

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