Surprising low abundance of European wildcats in a Mediterranean protected area of southwestern Spain

Abstract

The wildcat is a protected species in Europe but the lack of information on its status in many areas of its distribution range is an obstacle to conservation initiatives. To assess the status of the species over a 54,300 ha Mediterranean protected area in southwestern Spain (Doñana National Park, DNP), we carried out track censuses during the wet season of 2007–2008 and 2008–2009 in 2×2 km2 quadrants and set camera traps from June 2008 to October 2010 in quadrants or nearby quadrants where cat tracks were detected. We detected a total of 52 cat tracks for both study years and identified six different individuals from 28 photographs taken at 12 out of 166 trapping stations. We hypothesized that the causes of the a priori surprising low abundance of the species in the area might be multifold and might be explained by the historic competitive exclusion of the species by the Iberian lynx, the decrease of rabbit population in the DNP during the past decades, the isolation of DNP from the nearest natural areas that could have slowed the recovery of wildcat populations after a species declining and a potential increased mortality rate over time due to disease transmission from domestic cats.