Research overview: environmental DNA for detecting and studying wild cats

Environmental DNA, the genetic material that animals shed into their surroundings, offers a powerful new way to detect elusive cats without observing them directly. This overview surveys how environmental DNA from water, soil, scent-marking sites, and even prey carcasses is being used to confirm the presence of species such as tigers, leopards, and small cats, and to complement traditional noninvasive sampling. It discusses the methodological challenges of sensitivity, contamination, and degradation, the potential to estimate occupancy and distribution at landscape scales, and how environmental DNA expands the toolkit of conservation genetics for monitoring rare and cryptic felids across difficult terrain.