🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

As public attitudes and laws have turned against using big cats in circuses, film and other entertainment, retiring these animals to lifetime care has become a significant welfare undertaking. This ov…

Rotational exhibit systems allow multiple species or individuals to take turns occupying a series of connected spaces, multiplying the effective territory and novelty available to each animal. This ov…

Wild cats spend much of their active time searching for, stalking and processing prey, whereas captive cats are often fed a single quick meal. This overview surveys husbandry research on scatter feedi…

Cats communicate and organise their world through scent, marking with urine spray, facial rubbing, scratching and other signals, and the ability to perform and perceive these behaviours matters for we…

Whether to house shelter cats singly or in groups involves trade-offs between social opportunity, stress, disease transmission and space efficiency. This overview surveys research comparing the two: g…

Cats naturally rest and sleep for much of the day, which complicates welfare interpretation because inactivity can reflect either healthy, contented rest or boredom, depression and learned helplessnes…

Felid sociality varies from the solitary tiger and most small cats to the group-living lion, and captive social management must respect these differences. This overview surveys research on housing cat…

Domestic cats are facultatively social and did not evolve to share territory with unrelated individuals, so multi-cat households can generate chronic social stress that manifests as behaviour and heal…

Shelters are inherently stressful for cats, combining novelty, confinement, unfamiliar conspecifics, noise, unpredictable handling and loss of control. This overview surveys the science of shelter-cat…

Feline upper respiratory disease is the most common illness in shelters, and a body of research connects its incidence to stress-related immunosuppression as much as to pathogen exposure. This overvie…

The surfaces captive cats stand, walk and rest on affect comfort, health and behaviour, yet substrate is easily overlooked. This overview surveys substrate welfare for felids: the problems of hard, ab…

Managing captive felid populations sustainably requires controlling breeding to match available space and genetic goals, which raises difficult questions about surplus animals. This overview surveys t…

Synthetic analogues of feline facial and appeasing pheromones are widely marketed to reduce stress in cats, and their use in shelters, catteries and clinics has been studied with mixed but instructive…

Effective enrichment is a structured process, not a collection of toys, and the SPIDER framework, Setting goals, Planning, Implementing, Documenting, Evaluating and Re-adjusting, formalises this cycle…

Consensus veterinary guidelines distil decades of feline welfare science into five environmental needs: a safe place to retreat; multiple and separated key resources; opportunity for play and predator…

Familiar keepers occupy a special place in a captive animal's social environment, and the quality of the keeper-animal relationship can influence stress, cooperation and welfare. This overview surveys…

This overview surveys how the presence and behaviour of visitors specifically affect captive cats, a group that frequently responds to crowds with vigilance, hiding or altered activity. It examines st…

White tigers are not a separate subspecies but tigers carrying a recessive pigment variant, and nearly all captive white tigers descend from a small number of related founders, so producing them relie…

Felid species span tropical jungles, deserts and high mountains, so meeting their thermal needs in captivity, often in non-native climates, is a real welfare challenge. This overview surveys thermal w…

Large-scale captive tiger breeding facilities, particularly those linked to trade in tiger parts, present severe and systemic welfare concerns. This overview surveys the welfare dimensions of so-calle…

Moving cats between institutions for breeding, rescue or management is a recognised acute stressor with welfare implications. This overview surveys the science of felid transport and transfer: the str…

Non-invasive cortisol metabolite monitoring lets keepers test whether husbandry changes actually reduce physiological stress, moving welfare management from intuition to evidence. This overview survey…

Faecal glucocorticoid metabolite monitoring is the workhorse of felid stress research because it avoids the confound of capture and restraint, but it requires species-specific validation to be meaning…

Cats are arboreal-capable, climbing predators that value height, and research consistently shows captive felids prefer and benefit from elevated resting platforms, climbing structures and visually com…

Unlike most cats, tigers readily enter water and swim, and providing pools is considered an important welfare and enrichment feature for the species. This overview surveys evidence and practice around…

Cats used in research have specific welfare needs and have been the subject of foundational stress and housing studies. This overview surveys laboratory feline welfare: the classic finding that unpred…

Pumas, also called cougars or mountain lions, are commonly held in zoos and frequently appear among rescued cats in sanctuaries, often arriving from the pet trade or roadside attractions. This overvie…

Small wild cats, servals, ocelots, fishing cats, sand cats, margays and others, are widely held yet receive less welfare research attention than big cats. This overview surveys their husbandry needs:…

Private ownership of tigers, lions and other big cats, historically widespread in some countries, raises acute welfare and public-safety concerns. This overview surveys the issues: inadequate enclosur…

Cub-petting attractions, where the public pays to handle tiger, lion and other big-cat cubs, depend on a continuous supply of young animals within a narrow handleable age window. This overview surveys…