🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

The One Welfare concept recognises that animal welfare, human wellbeing and the environment are interconnected, a framing increasingly applied to those who care for captive cats. This overview surveys…

Spirometra tapeworms use felids and other carnivores as definitive hosts, while their larval stages, known as spargana, infect a wide range of intermediate and paratenic hosts, including amphibians, r…

While pacing dominates discussion of felid stereotypy, captive cats display a range of other abnormal repetitive behaviours that signal welfare problems. This overview surveys these: route-tracing and…

Genuine sanctuaries provide lifetime care for rescued big cats without breeding, commercial public contact or trade, distinguishing themselves from roadside attractions through formal standards. This…

This overview reviews the application of adaptive management, structured learning through iterative intervention, monitoring, and adjustment, to human-big cat conflict. It synthesises arguments that b…

A survey of how cats do not take prey at random but select particular age and sex classes, with consequences for prey populations. Felids frequently kill disproportionately young, old or otherwise vul…

A growing body of welfare thinking holds that giving animals control over their environment, the ability to make choices and influence outcomes, is itself a key contributor to good welfare. This overv…

Atipamezole, an alpha-2 adrenergic antagonist, reverses the sedative and immobilizing effects of medetomidine and dexmedetomidine, allowing controlled and rapid recovery from anesthetic protocols that…

A survey of the two principal felid hunting strategies, stalk-and-ambush used by most cats and the high-speed pursuit of the cheetah, and their ecological consequences. Ambush predators rely on cover…

Chemical immobilisation is sometimes unavoidable for examining or treating large carnivores, but it carries welfare and mortality risks and is itself stressful. This overview surveys the welfare consi…

Captive big cats commonly require dental procedures, especially for fractured canine teeth, and these interventions demand careful general anesthesia given the size, danger, and physiologic vulnerabil…

Molecular studies consistently show that African leopards, despite occupying a vast and varied continent, harbor relatively shallow genetic structure compared with the deep splits separating Asian for…

Modern welfare science increasingly seeks not just to minimise suffering but to promote positive emotional states, yet measuring positive affect in cats is challenging. This overview surveys approache…

Assisted reproductive technologies, including artificial insemination, semen and embryo cryopreservation, and in vitro fertilization, have been applied to felids to support captive breeding and conser…

Behaviour offers a rich, non-invasive window into felid welfare, but interpreting it requires care. This overview surveys the behavioural signs used to assess captive cats: stereotypic pacing and rout…

Big cats arriving at sanctuaries from circuses, roadside zoos, private ownership or the pet trade often carry physical and psychological scars, including declawing, malnutrition, obesity, dental disea…

African carnivores, including lions, leopards and cheetahs, host a rich diversity of blood-borne parasites that molecular surveys continue to uncover. This overview surveys the diversity of hemoparasi…

Sedentary captive cats fed energy-dense diets are prone to obesity, which carries serious welfare and health consequences. This overview surveys body-condition management in felids: the prevalence and…

Captive cats fed soft, processed diets commonly develop dental disease such as gingivitis, calculus and tooth fractures, whereas chewing on bone, hide and connective tissue provides natural abrasion a…

This overview synthesises how buffer-zone management and community forestry mediate human-tiger and human-leopard conflict around protected areas in Nepal and India. It reviews programs that share par…

An overview of how solitary cats protect and prolong access to their kills by caching them. Pumas cover carcasses with vegetation and soil and revisit them over several days, while leopards famously h…

This overview reviews the application of camera-trap surveys and spatially explicit capture-recapture methods to estimate big-cat density in human-dominated and conflict-prone landscapes. It synthesis…

Cat coats are often patterned for concealment, and this overview reviews the function and development of spots, stripes, and rosettes. Patterns such as the tiger stripes and leopard rosettes break up…

Canine distemper virus (CDV) is a morbillivirus closely related to measles and rinderpest that has expanded its host range far beyond dogs to infect lions, tigers, leopards, hyenas, seals and many oth…

Capture myopathy, a potentially fatal syndrome of muscle damage arising from the stress, exertion, and physiologic derangement of capture and restraint, is a recognized risk when immobilizing wild fel…

An overview of how the kills of large felids redistribute energy and nutrients through ecosystems. Carcasses and the cats' partly eaten remains create nutrient hotspots that fertilize soils and vegeta…

A survey of the diverse communities of vertebrates and invertebrates that exploit carcasses produced by cats, and how those carcasses structure scavenger interactions. Felid kills attract a succession…

An overview of the quantitative tools used to predict how many large predators a reserve can sustain from its prey base, building on the prey-preference and prey-biomass approaches. These models estim…

The catnip response, a heritable reaction to nepetalactone causing sniffing, rubbing, rolling and a euphoric-seeming state, occurs in many domestic cats and some non-domestic felids. This overview sur…

This overview examines one of the central operational challenges of compensation schemes: verifying that claimed livestock deaths were genuinely caused by the target predator. It synthesises methods,…