🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

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…

Leopard attacks on humans, though rare relative to encounter frequency, shape public perception and policy across urban-adjacent India. This overview surveys research on the spatial and temporal clust…

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…

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…

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

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…

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…

Play, especially object play that mimics hunting, is both an indicator and a contributor to good welfare in cats, and its absence can signal stress or poor environments. This overview surveys research…

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…

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…

A survey of the anti-predator escape behaviors prey use once detected or attacked by cats and how they determine the outcome of a hunt. Prey employ rapid acceleration, unpredictable zig-zagging, stott…

How flexibly a cat can switch prey when its preferred species declines shapes its resilience to drought and habitat change. This overview surveys evidence on dietary breadth across felids, from specia…

An overview of the behavioral defenses ungulates and other prey deploy against felid predators, from vigilance scanning to alarm signaling and habitat avoidance. Because cats are stealthy ambush hunte…

A survey of how big cats process and consume their kills, and why handling time matters for kill-rate estimation and competition. Larger carcasses take longer to consume and force predators to remain…

A methodological survey of the indices used to measure whether felids prefer or avoid prey relative to availability, including the Jacobs index, Ivlev's electivity and related measures central to the…

An overview of how the range of prey sizes a felid exploits scales with its own body mass, producing the nested prey-size structure of carnivore communities. Larger cats not only take larger average p…

How keepers interact with dangerous captive carnivores spans a spectrum from free contact, sharing space with the animal, to protected contact, where a barrier always separates human and cat. This ove…

Qualitative Behaviour Assessment asks trained observers to score the expressive demeanour of an animal, capturing emotional qualities such as relaxed, tense, content or frustrated that quantitative et…

Deciding when a chronically ill or aged big cat's welfare no longer justifies continued life is among the most difficult tasks in captive felid care. This overview surveys structured quality-of-life a…

Rabies, an almost invariably fatal lyssavirus infection, occasionally strikes wild felids exposed through bites from infected dogs, jackals or other wildlife reservoirs. This overview surveys document…

This overview examines how religious beliefs, sacred associations, and cultural traditions foster, or sometimes undermine, tolerance for big cats. It synthesises cases such as reverence for tigers and…

Remote drug delivery using dart guns and pole syringes enables chemical immobilization of dangerous or free-ranging felids from a safe distance, a foundational technique for field and zoo capture. Suc…

Chronic kidney disease is a common cause of illness and death in aging captive big cats, paralleling its prominence in domestic cats and reflecting the longer lifespans achieved in managed care. Capti…

This overview examines the pervasive problem of biased and incomplete data in human-big cat conflict research, which can distort understanding and management. It synthesises evidence that incidents ar…

This overview examines social-science research on how Mumbai residents living near Sanjay Gandhi National Park perceive and respond to leopards. It synthesises studies of fear, tolerance, media framin…