🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This overview reviews how direct experience of livestock loss or a frightening encounter shapes attitudes and tolerance toward big cats, with mixed findings across studies. It synthesises evidence tha…

In territorial solitary cats such as leopards, cubs are sometimes fathered by males other than the dominant resident, raising questions about mating dynamics. This overview surveys evidence for extra-…

A survey of the conditions under which big cats switch from hunting to scavenging, and what this means for their ecology. Although large felids lack the scavenging specializations of hyenas and vultur…

Much pacing in captive big cats clusters in the period before scheduled feeding, suggesting that predictable meal times generate anticipatory arousal expressed as repetitive walking. This overview sur…

Tea, coffee and rubber plantations across South and Southeast Asia form extensive human-modified habitats used by leopards, leopard cats, jungle cats and fishing cats with varying tolerance. This over…

This overview synthesises the use of fencing, from electrified perimeter fences around reserves to village-boundary barriers and predator-proof enclosures, to separate big cats from people and livesto…

This overview reviews the use of flashing LED deterrent systems, including commercial Foxlights and the locally invented Lion Lights popularised by Kenyan inventor Richard Turere, to discourage noctur…

This overview examines research on forecasting big-cat attacks and translating risk maps into operational decisions, bridging prediction and action. It synthesises work modelling environmental and beh…

Captive big cats commonly fracture their large canine teeth through biting enclosure barriers, fighting, or chewing hard objects, exposing the pulp and causing pain and infection that require dental i…

This overview synthesises emerging frameworks for managing leopards in urban and peri-urban India, integrating ecology, public health, communications, and governance. It reviews recommendations distil…

This overview synthesises evidence that abundant free-ranging and feral dogs constitute a major prey subsidy enabling leopards, and some other big cats, to persist in human-dominated landscapes across…

This overview synthesises emerging priorities and frontiers in human-big cat conflict and coexistence research. It reviews calls for more rigorous impact evaluation, greater integration of social scie…

Surveys of the gut parasites of wild cats, typically based on fecal examination, provide a window into felid health, diet and environmental exposure. This overview surveys the common gastrointestinal…

This overview synthesises emerging research on how gender shapes exposure, perception, and response to big-cat conflict. It reviews evidence that women and men often experience conflict differently, o…

Captive big cats often live well beyond their wild lifespans, so managing ageing animals has become a central welfare task. This overview surveys geriatric felid care: recognising and treating chronic…

Captive big cats now routinely reach advanced ages, and zoos have developed geriatric care programs addressing arthritis, dental disease, kidney and heart disease, cancer, and quality-of-life assessme…

A survey of how giving-up density experiments quantify the fear that cats and other predators instill in their prey. By offering prey artificial food patches and measuring how much food they leave bef…

A survey of how prey use group living to reduce predation by cats, through the many-eyes effect, dilution, confusion and collective defense. Larger herds detect stalking felids sooner and dilute indiv…

Big cats select habitat at multiple scales, balancing the need for prey, cover for stalking, water, and shelter against the risks posed by competitors and humans. This overview synthesizes research sh…

This overview synthesises evidence on why deterrents, lights, sirens, scent, and visual scarecrows, often lose effectiveness as predators habituate. It examines the behavioural ecology of neophobia an…

Hand-rearing orphaned or maternally rejected big cat cubs requires specialized veterinary and husbandry knowledge covering appropriate milk replacers matched to species composition, prevention of nutr…

Whether felid cubs are raised by their mothers or by humans has lasting effects on behaviour, social competence and welfare. This overview surveys the comparative evidence: hand-reared cats may show a…

Translocating wild felids for conservation, conflict mitigation, or population management involves significant veterinary considerations, including pre-release health screening, disease risk assessmen…

Most big cats organize their use of space through a land-tenure system in which residents hold home ranges advertised by scent and maintained partly through avoidance. This overview synthesizes the ge…

This overview synthesises research quantifying the economic burden of big-cat depredation on rural households, emphasising that losses small in aggregate can be devastating to individual families. It…

Leopards coexist with larger, dominant carnivores by avoiding them in space, time, and behavior. This overview synthesizes research showing how leopards select denser cover, shift activity to avoid pe…

This overview reviews leopard conflict in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh, where leopards inhabit forest-farmland mosaics and prey on goats, dogs, and occasionally attack people. It synthesise…

Hung carcasses and bungee-suspended food are used to encourage captive cats to pull, leap and feed in physically demanding, naturalistic ways. This overview surveys studies that pair such feeding enri…

Large felids under anesthesia frequently develop hypoxemia, low blood oxygen, due to the effects of recumbency and body mass on lung function, hypoventilation from anesthetic drugs, and ventilation-pe…

This overview synthesises research on the concept of problem individuals, specific big cats responsible for repeated attacks on livestock or people, and how to identify and manage them. It reviews evi…