🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

An overview of how the prey a cat takes changes as it grows, learns to hunt and gains the size and strength to subdue larger prey. Young felids first depend on prey provided by their mother, then prac…

Potent opioids, including butorphanol and ultra-potent agents in some protocols, are incorporated into big-cat anesthesia to enhance analgesia and immobilization, often combined with dissociatives and…

An overview of how energetic costs and benefits shape the prey sizes big cats prefer to hunt. Optimal foraging predicts that predators target prey large enough to yield a high energy return per kill y…

Oral vaccination, delivered through baits, has been used to immunize wildlife reservoirs against rabies and is considered for other diseases, with indirect benefits for exposed felids. This overview s…

The Panthera lineage contains the roaring cats and their relatives and represents the earliest branch of the modern felid radiation. This overview surveys genetic and fossil evidence for an Asian orig…

Stereotypic pacing is the signature abnormal behaviour of captive carnivores, and a leading explanation links it to thwarted ranging and unfulfilled appetitive, pre-consummatory motivation, the search…

This overview examines participatory approaches in which affected communities themselves map where, when, and how big-cat conflict occurs, combining local knowledge with spatial tools. It synthesises…

Within a lion pride, resident males form coalitions that collectively defend breeding access, raising the question of how paternity is shared among them. This overview surveys genetic and behavioral s…

The concept of pathogen pollution describes the human-mediated introduction of pathogens into new host populations, a recurring driver of disease in wild felids. This overview surveys how activities s…

This overview reviews how delays, bureaucratic complexity, and inadequate payouts undermine government compensation schemes for big-cat depredation, particularly in South Asia and Africa. It synthesis…

This overview reviews how payments-for-ecosystem-services (PES) frameworks have been adapted to compensate communities for hosting large carnivores, treating predator presence as a service worth rewar…

A challenging finding for felid welfare management is that stereotypic pacing, once established, can persist even after enclosures are enriched or enlarged, becoming partly independent of its original…

Genetic studies have reshaped lion taxonomy by revealing a primary division between a northern group, encompassing the Asiatic, West African, and Central African lions, and a southern and eastern Afri…

Anesthetizing large felids carries substantial physiologic risk, and monitoring of oxygenation, ventilation, heart rate, blood pressure, and temperature is essential, with pulse oximetry, capnography,…

Young cats engage in object and social play that is widely thought to help develop the motor patterns and coordination underlying predatory behavior. This overview surveys studies of play in kittens a…

Play is prominent in young big cats and persists in enriched captive settings, where it supports physical development and welfare. This overview surveys research on social and object play in lion, tig…

Operant conditioning with positive reinforcement underpins modern husbandry training, allowing cats to cooperate in shifting, crating, weighing and medical procedures. This overview surveys the learni…

Ultra-potent opioids such as thiafentanil and related compounds have been used in some wildlife immobilization protocols because their high potency allows effective dosing in tiny dart volumes and the…

This overview examines how poverty and social vulnerability concentrate the costs of big-cat conflict on those least able to bear them. It synthesises evidence that the poorest, most forest- or rangel…

A survey of how felids exploit the seasonal pulse of newborn ungulates, a period of high vulnerability that can dominate annual recruitment losses. During calving and fawning seasons, abundant, hidden…

An overview of how the scent of felid predators alone can suppress prey foraging, movement and reproduction, demonstrating nonconsumptive effects without any direct attack. Prey detect chemical cues o…

This overview surveys evidence on reinforcing nighttime livestock enclosures (bomas, kraals) to prevent attacks by lions, leopards, hyenas, and cheetahs across East African rangelands. It covers the p…

Reinforcing the enclosures, or bomas, where livestock are kept at night is among the most direct ways to reduce predation by lions, leopards, and other cats, and thereby retaliatory killing. This over…

A survey of the strong, general relationship between the abundance of prey and the density of the carnivores that depend on them, a cornerstone of predator ecology. Across species and systems, predato…

This overview reviews the use of statistical and machine-learning models to build predictive risk maps that forecast where big-cat conflict is likely, rather than only describing past incidents. It sy…

Managers use prescribed fire to shape vegetation, reduce fuel loads, and create habitat conditions that benefit wildlife, including the prey of cats. This overview surveys how planned burning maintain…

Modern zoos run structured preventive medicine programs for captive felids encompassing routine health monitoring, parasite control, vaccination, nutritional management, dental care, and increasingly…

The abundance of big cats is governed largely from the bottom up by the biomass of their prey. This overview synthesizes the strong, repeatedly demonstrated relationship between ungulate prey density…

This overview explores the ecological backdrop to the 1898 Tsavo man-eating events, emphasising the late-nineteenth-century rinderpest panzootic that devastated wild ungulates and pastoralist cattle a…

A survey of the minimum prey abundance large cats need to maintain viable populations and why prey depletion is a leading cause of felid decline. Because predator density scales with prey biomass, the…