🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Free-ranging domestic cats are reservoirs and vectors for pathogens affecting wildlife, other cats and humans, including the protozoan that causes toxoplasmosis and various feline viruses. This overvi…

Ocelots at the northern edge of their range in Texas show severe genetic erosion, with small isolated populations separated by agriculture and roads exhibiting low diversity and signs of inbreeding. T…

The caracals of the Cape Peninsula occupy a near-island of habitat bounded by ocean, the city of Cape Town and agricultural land, raising concern about genetic isolation analogous to freeway-bounded f…

When urban felid populations become severely inbred, genetic rescue, the introduction of individuals or gene flow from other populations, can restore diversity and demographic vigour. This overview sy…

Vehicle collisions are a leading direct cause of death for felids in human-dominated landscapes worldwide, from pumas on Los Angeles freeways to leopard cats on Taiwan rural roads and fishing cats in…

Documented first in southern California felids and later in Cape Town caracals, anticoagulant-rodenticide exposure in wild cats has emerged as a global phenomenon wherever predators hunt poisoned rode…

Parks, greenbelts, riparian corridors, vacant lots and vegetated drainage form a network of green infrastructure that urban felids exploit for shelter, hunting and movement. This overview synthesises…

Research at a heavily industrialised and agricultural site in South Africa documented unexpectedly high serval densities, challenging assumptions that intensively modified land cannot support felids.…

Concentrated, predictable food in cities allows carnivores to meet their needs over smaller areas, contributing to the strikingly compressed home ranges documented in urban felids from leopards to pum…

Successful coexistence with urban felids depends as much on human attitudes, institutions and behaviour as on animal ecology. This overview synthesises social-science research on tolerance, risk perce…

Where small wild felids overlap with free-ranging domestic cats around settlements, hybridisation and disease transmission can threaten the genetic integrity and health of wild populations. This overv…

Consistent individual differences in boldness, exploration and risk tolerance, often termed animal personality, may determine which individuals successfully colonise and persist in urban environments.…

Direct provisioning, whether intentional feeding of wildlife or unintentional access to pet food, livestock and garbage, can habituate felids to people and escalate conflict. This overview synthesises…

The jaguarundi, an unusually weasel-shaped small cat, ranges through scrub, forest edge and agricultural mosaics across Latin America, yet remains poorly studied. This overview synthesises camera-trap…

The jungle cat thrives in human-modified wetlands, irrigated croplands and reed beds across Asia and the Middle East, often close to villages and towns. This overview synthesises distribution, diet an…

Leopard cats are efficient predators of rodents and other small prey, and in agricultural mosaics they may provide pest-suppression services that benefit farmers. This overview synthesises scat and pr…

Securing the attractants that draw felids toward people, including garbage, pet food, accessible livestock and the rodent and dog populations these support, is a frontline coexistence measure. This ov…

Many urban felid populations centre on protected areas embedded in or abutting cities, from Sanjay Gandhi National Park to Griffith Park and Table Mountain National Park, making the park-city interfac…

How urban felids are portrayed in media and perceived by the public strongly influences tolerance, policy and conservation outcomes. This overview synthesises social-science research on news framing o…

Many felids become more strictly nocturnal as human activity increases, a pattern documented from Indian leopards to Californian bobcats and pumas. This overview synthesises camera-trap and telemetry…

Chronic exposure to anthropogenic noise can elevate stress hormones and impair health and reproduction in wildlife, a pathway potentially affecting urban-edge carnivores. This overview synthesises phy…

Protecting livestock and poultry from felid predation through non-lethal means is central to reducing conflict and retaliatory killing at the urban and agricultural edge. This overview synthesises res…

Population viability analysis integrates demography, genetics and connectivity to project the persistence of small felid populations isolated by urbanisation, guiding conservation triage and intervent…

Artificial light alters the behaviour, abundance and detectability of the rodents, birds and insects that felids hunt, indirectly affecting predators through the prey base. This overview synthesises r…

During his time in Griffith Park, the Los Angeles puma P-22 developed notoedric mange and was found to have been exposed to anticoagulant rodenticides, mirroring a pattern documented in regional bobca…

Documented anticoagulant exposure in Cape Town caracals has driven advocacy for safer rodent control, echoing regulatory debates in North America over the same compounds. This overview synthesises evi…

The effectiveness of wildlife crossings depends partly on shielding animals from the light and noise of adjacent traffic, factors that can deter wary felids from using overpasses and underpasses. This…

Agroforestry systems such as shade coffee and cacao, along with tree plantations and pasture-forest mosaics, can provide partial habitat for ocelots, margays, oncillas and jaguarundis across Latin Ame…

As agriculture and settlement advance into Neotropical forests, small cats face habitat loss, road mortality, retaliatory killing over poultry depredation, and competition with free-ranging dogs. This…

Stable-isotope analysis of felid tissues offers a powerful way to quantify how much of a cat diet derives from anthropogenic versus natural sources, complementing scat analysis. This overview synthesi…