🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Margulis, Hoyos and Anderson examined the relationship between how active captive cats are and how long visitors watch them. Observing several felid species, they found that visitor interest, measured…

Margulis SW, Hoyos C, Anderson M · Zoo Biology · 2003

Following the Bronx Zoo tigers, SARS-CoV-2 infections were confirmed in big cats at zoos and sanctuaries across multiple countries, including additional tigers, lions, snow leopards, pumas and others.…

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…

As climate change shifts the distribution of suitable habitat, corridors that connect populations today may not align with where animals need to move tomorrow, and this overview examines how researche…

Comparative and within-institution studies have probed which enclosure features predict pacing in captive cats. This overview surveys evidence relating stereotypic pacing to enclosure size, complexity…

No single indicator captures welfare reliably, so the field has moved toward integrated assessment combining multiple lines of evidence. This overview surveys how comprehensive welfare evaluation for…

Modern exhibit design aims to provide not just naturalistic appearance for visitors but genuine behavioural opportunity for animals. This overview surveys principles of felid exhibit design: complex,…

Net squared displacement, the squared straight-line distance from a starting point over time, provides a simple but powerful way to classify whole-trajectory movement strategies. This overview describ…

Individual cats differ consistently in boldness, fearfulness, aggressiveness and sociability, and these stable traits affect welfare, breeding success and how animals respond to husbandry. This overvi…

Despite decades of study, major gaps remain in understanding disease in wild felids, particularly for less-studied species and regions. This overview surveys the priorities and unanswered questions in…

Initiatives to receive signals from very small animal tags via satellites or the International Space Station, such as the ICARUS effort, promise to shrink trackers and broaden which species can be fol…

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…

Standard home ranges flatten an animal's world onto a two-dimensional map, but cats in mountainous terrain move through strongly three-dimensional space, and their ranges shift across seasons. This ov…

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…

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…