David Barclay - Scottish Wildcats

Percy introduced David as a former pupil at Currie High School and David said he had indeed spent the first 18 years of his life in Currie. He had gone on to gain a B.Sc in Animal Biology at Napier University.

David’s area of interest and expertise is in carnivore conservation and currently specifically in conservation of Scottish wildcats. He is based at the Highlands Wildlife Park with the Royal Zoological Society, Scotland as conservation manager.

Having travelled internationally, gaining experience of conservation programmes around the world, he is now focussed on the decline of the Scottish wildcats and leads a programme of breeding captive animals with the aim of releasing them into the wild in the Cairngorms National Park.

Wildcats had once existed throughout the UK but were now only to be found in the Scottish Highlands and were near to extinction. Supported financially by the EU, through the European Endangered Species Programme, the Saving Wildcats Programme is a six-year project, which involves breeding from wildcats brought from zoos across the UK. After breeding in captivity, 20 cats are to be released into the wild each year, starting in 2022.

David emphasised the difficulty of ensuring genetic integrity, as one of the greatest threats has been the appearance of hybrid cats as a consequence of mating in the wild with feral cats. In this connection he praised work done on genetic analysis and management in the Edinburgh Zoo laboratory. 

This was a most interesting presentation and Graham Low thanked David on behalf of the Club.