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Of wildcats and wild cats: Troubling species-based conservation in the Anthropocene

Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: This article takes the case of Scottish wildcats, threatened with extinction through hybridisation with feral domestic cats, as a site for exploring what it means to conserve a species as such. To this end, the article looks at the practices associated with conserving Scottish wildcats as defined by a definite phenotypical, morphological and/or genetic type, abstracted from indefinite, fleshy organisms emplaced and entangled within changing ecologies. The article describes the biopolitical work of taxonomically distinguishing wildcats ( Felis silvestris) from domestic cats ( Felis catus) and their hybrids, exploring the challenges presented to this work by the disorderly agencies of wild-living cats. It then outlines and reflects on the proposed captive breeding programme aimed at preserving the ‘pure’ Scottish wildcat sub-species type. This case highlights the ways in which species-based conservation can conflict with care for individual animals as well as with life’s immanent, generative tendencies.
DOI: 10.1177/0263775815623539
Language: English
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2274830360
FWCI: 29.54
Cites: 80
Cited by: 63
Related to: 10