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There are 38 species of cats. Most wild cat populations are declining and some are critically endangered. They are highly specialised carnivores with agile muscular bodies, acute senses, rapid reflexes and cryptic colouration. Historically, the cat's beautiful fur was the primary cause of its decline.
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| Tigers |
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|  | The tiger is the largest of all the cats and also one of the most vulnerable. The geographical distribution of the tiger once extended as far west as eastern turkey, but is now restricted to pockets of southern and eastern Asia. Historically, the tiger ranged from Turkey eastward to the coasts of Russia and China, and from as far north as Eastern Siberia to the Indonesian island of Bali.
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| | Although 8 subspecies are recognised, 3 have become extinct since the 1950s (the Bali, Caspian and Javan tigers). All 5 remaining are endangered, 3 of them critically. Fewer than 2,500 mature breeding individuals remain in the wild, and their numbers are still falling.
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| | The remaining tigers occur in isolated pockets spread across increasingly fragmented forests from India to south eastern China and from the Russian Far East to Indonesia.
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| | The most immediate problem is illegal hunting. Bones and other body parts are used in traditional medicines in the Far East. Loss of habitat and lack of prey due to over-hunting also pose huge threats.
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Conservation efforts include the setting up of tiger conservation areas, combating poaching of tigers and their prey, eliminating the trade in tiger parts and products and creating incentives to encourage local communities to support tiger conservation.
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| | For more information about the tiger see ARKive.
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| Iberian lynx |
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| | The Iberian lynx is one of only two carnivorous species endemic to Europe. The other is the mink. Once common throughout the Iberian peninsula and the south of France, the lynx is found where there is dense scrub for shelter and open pasture for hunting rabbits.
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| | The Iberian lynx is so critically endangered it could become the first wild cat species to go extinct for 2,000 years. According to the WWF, there are about 100 left in two small pockets of Spain and Portugal (Cota Donana and Andujar) and numbers have declined dramatically since the early 1990s.
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| | Habitat loss and fragmentation by agricultural and industrial development has resulted in the range of the lynx shrinking by 80% between 1960 and 1990. Forest fires have also taken a heavy toll.
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| | In the 1950s, myxomatosis was introduced to control Europe's rabbit population and the lynx lost its principal prey. With its main food source reduced, the lynx population crashed. Conservationists are now breeding and releasing rabbits, while the wild rabbit population is developing a natural immunity to myxomatosis.
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Lynx are also injured by snares set for rabbits, killed on the roads by speeding vehicles and shot in illegal hunting operations.
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To save the species it will be necessary to identify and protect lynx areas, by providing incentives to encourage landowners to allow the cats on to their land. Building development must be halted and a ban on hunting enforced. Existing populations must be linked with habitat corridors.
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| | For more information about the Iberian lynx see ARKive.
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| Puma |
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| | The puma originally ranged throughout much of North, Central, and South America. It is among the most widely ranging American mammals, but has been lost from much of its former range over the last 500 years. It is also known as the cougar, mountain lion, Florida panther and red tiger.
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| | The greatest threat to the puma's survival is loss, fragmentation, and degradation of habitat. Other threats include inbreeding, insufficient numbers of large prey, disease, and environmental contaminants.
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| | The Florida panther, one of more than 20 subspecies of puma, is critically endangered, as is the eastern North American subspecies.
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The Florida panther was formerly found throughout the south eastern United States, but had disappeared from most of its range by the late 1920s. Florida was one of the first states to offer any legal protection to the panther, in the 1950s, and it is now home to the only known puma population in eastern North America, consisting of just 30-50 adult animals confined to fragmented patches of habitat.
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Health issues affecting such small populations include a lack of sufficiently diverse genetic material, exposure to domestic animal-borne disease (such as feline HIV) and problems stemming from poor nutrition, such as anaemia and parasitic infestation.
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Between 1979 and 1991, road kills accounted for half of all known Florida panther deaths while very high levels of mercury were found in two dead Everglades panthers, possibly from eating racoons that had eaten contaminated fish.
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Re-introduction is the government's preferred management strategy. However, these efforts have been hampered by complaints from locals and cats have been recaptured.
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| | For more information about the puma see ARKive.
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| Other wild cats |
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Lions are chiefly found in isolated populations in and around protected areas in eastern and southern Africa. The main threat to their survival is conflict with human settlements. They are hunted or deliberately poisoned because they attack cattle herds. There is a small population of Asiatic lions in the Gir forest in India that is critically endangered.
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Jaguars are associated with water and the flooded Amazon basin in South America is their primary home. The loss and fragmentation of their rainforest home is the main threat now that there is no longer a market for their fur. Where people encroach into the forest, there is also conflict over livestock.
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In north Africa and south-west Asia, leopards are also persecuted. Once again, a reduction in natural prey, leads them to attack livestock. These small isolated populations are also threatened by in-breeding.
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Cheetahs once ranged throughout Africa and south west Asia. Now they are only found south of the Sahara and are extinct in India. As a species, they are classified as vulnerable (by the IUCN), but one subspecies is listed as endangered and another is critically endangered. Human encroachment on their habitat and hunting has dramatically reduced their numbers. The cheetah is also under threat from genetic inbreeding due to reduced numbers.
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