Question reference: S5W-26206
- Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 7 November 2019
-
Current status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 15 November 2019
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what research it has undertaken into wildcat den locations and the impact that logging has on their population.
Answer
The Scottish Wildcat Action (SWA) partnership, which includes the Scottish Government, has been involved in the GPS tracking of wildcats over the past two years, as part of a collaboration with the University of Oxford.
One of the objectives of this research is to improve our knowledge of wildcat den site locations and the factors that influence their selection. A second objective is to better understand habitat preference of wildcats, including their use of commercially managed forests. In addition, SWA partners (through Forestry and Land Scotland) have been trialling the creation of den sites in the Angus Glens and have been monitoring the use of these dens over the past year.
Findings from both these research projects will be published within the final report of the SWA project by the end of March 2020.