Research overview: disease considerations in felid rewilding and range expansion

As conservation efforts seek to rewild felids and support natural range expansion, disease becomes a critical consideration. This overview surveys the disease dimensions of rewilding and range recovery in cats, including the pathogen risks of releasing animals into new areas, the disease exposures recolonizing felids encounter, and the contact with domestic animals along expanding frontiers. It examines screening, monitoring and risk assessment in rewilding programs and the balance between restoring populations and managing disease. The synthesis connects restoration ecology to epidemiology. It aims to help readers understand that returning cats to former ranges or supporting their natural spread is not disease-neutral, and that thoughtful attention to pathogen risk, both to and from the moving animals, is essential to ensure that rewilding strengthens rather than endangers the felid populations it seeks to restore.