Research overview: European wildcats at the agricultural and urban edge

The European wildcat occupies forest and agricultural mosaics across Europe, where proximity to settlements brings hybridisation with domestic cats, road mortality and habitat fragmentation. This overview synthesises research on wildcat habitat use in human-modified landscapes, the genetic threat of introgression from free-ranging domestic cats, and conservation including corridor restoration and domestic-cat management. It examines how the species recovers into farmland and forest near people while facing the insidious dilution of its gene pool. The synthesis frames the European wildcat as a felid whose principal urban-edge threat is genetic rather than purely demographic, distinguishing it within the broader urban-felid picture.