🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Freezing and storing sperm is the most established form of felid biobanking, enabling the preservation and transport of male genetics. This overview surveys methods for cryopreserving cat sperm, inclu…

An overview of how ambush felids select hunting habitat to minimize the distance over which they must close on prey undetected. Because capture success drops sharply with the length of the final rush,…

Deciding which individuals, tissues, and species to bank, and how to use stored material, requires strategy to maximize conservation value. This overview surveys the principles guiding genome resource…

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…

Although many cats avoid water, some are capable swimmers, and a few hunt in it. This overview surveys aquatic locomotion in felids, focusing on the fishing cat, whose partially webbed paws and water-…

Recovering sperm directly from the testis or epididymis provides an alternative source of gametes, especially from animals that cannot be electroejaculated or are recently deceased. This overview surv…

Reproductive hormone levels in male cats can vary seasonally and with social status, influencing semen quality and reproductive behavior. This overview surveys research on testosterone and related and…

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…

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…

The combination of the dissociative anesthetic tiletamine with the benzodiazepine zolazepam, marketed as Telazol or Zoletil, is widely used for chemical restraint and anesthesia of felids ranging from…

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…

An overview of how large cats can structure ecosystems from the top down, with effects rippling through herbivores to vegetation and beyond. By killing and frightening herbivores, apex felids such as…

Ultrasonography is a noninvasive imaging tool used to detect pregnancy, estimate fetal age, count and monitor fetuses, and assess viability in cats. This overview surveys how ultrasound is applied acr…

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…

After SARS-CoV-2 reached zoo animals, some facilities vaccinated captive carnivores, including big cats, using animal-specific vaccines to reduce the risk of severe disease. This overview surveys the…

Captive big cats are vaccinated against diseases that threaten felids, including panleukopenia, the respiratory viruses, and rabies, with protocols adapted from domestic-cat guidelines but informed by…

Vaccinating endangered wild felids against canine distemper is fraught with trade-offs. This overview surveys the options: modified-live vaccines, which risk vaccine-induced disease in non-target spec…

Modified-live canine distemper vaccines, while protective in dogs, have caused vaccine-induced disease when given to some nondomestic carnivores, complicating efforts to protect wild felids. This over…

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…

Weaning marks the shift from dependence on maternal milk to consuming solid prey, a gradual transition whose timing varies with species and circumstances. This overview surveys weaning ages across the…

Conceptual frameworks structure how we judge captive animal welfare, and they have evolved over time. This overview surveys the progression from the Five Freedoms, freedom from hunger, discomfort, pai…

Feeding captive big cats appropriately requires meeting their obligate-carnivore nutritional needs, with debate and research around whole-prey versus formulated diets, calcium-phosphorus balance, taur…

Although domestic cats have vertical-slit pupils, large felids such as lions and tigers have round pupils, a contrast that has attracted scientific attention. This overview surveys the explanation tie…

Cats are notably permissive to SARS-CoV-2, a susceptibility rooted in the structure of their ACE2 receptor, which the viral spike protein binds efficiently. This overview surveys comparative studies o…

This edited volume brought together early scientific work on environmental enrichment, consolidating it into a coherent field. Chapters covered the history, theory, design and evaluation of enrichment…

Shepherdson DJ, Mellen JD, Hutchins M (eds) · Smithsonian Institution Press · 1998

Wells reviewed how stimulating the senses, through olfactory, auditory, visual and tactile inputs, can enrich captive animals. She summarised evidence that scents such as spices and prey odours, sound…

Wells DL · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 2009

Morgan and Tromborg comprehensively reviewed the environmental factors that stress captive animals, cataloguing sound, light, odour, temperature, substrate, restraint, human presence, predictability a…

Morgan KN, Tromborg CT · Applied Animal Behaviour Science · 2007

Lyons, Young and Deag surveyed multiple felid species across enclosures differing in size, complexity and feeding routine to identify what most affects behaviour. They found that enclosure usage and a…

Lyons J, Young RJ, Deag JM · Zoo Biology · 1997