Cats-Only Veterinary Care

Description
The forest wildcats of Europe and western Russia are grey-brown in coat color, with bushy, blunt-ended tails and a well-defined pattern of black stripes. Although they tend to look bigger than African wildcats because of their thick winter fur, an extensive series of weight measurements have shown that they are not.


Size
 Weight: Males average 5 kg (11 pounds)  Females 3.5 kg (7.5 pounds). There are strong seasonal weight fluctuations ranging up to 2.5 kg (5.5 pounds), with heaviest male weights recorded from fall to early winter. About the same size as a house cat.

Habitat
 European wildcats are primarily associated with forest, and are found in highest numbers in broad-leaved or mixed forests Wildcats are also found in Mediterranean maquis scrubland, forest, marsh boundaries and along sea coasts. In general, regions occupied by forest wildcats are characterized by low human density, with cultivation typically taking the form of grazing areas divided into small plots. Rocky areas are a preferred micro-habitat.  Wildcats can live in very wet, swampy areas (usually among the last types of habitat to be modifed by humans).

Diet
 As with other wildcats, rodents are the staple of their diet across most of their range. However, rabbits comprise the major prey where they occur, as in central Spain and an agricultural area in north-eastern Scotland. Birds are of secondary importance. Wildcats will also scavenge food and cache their kills, especially in winter.

Breeding
 A litter of 1 - 8 kittens is born after gestation of 63 to 68 days. The kittens become independent at 4-5 months and are sexually mature at 9-12 months.

Range
 After the marked decline of the forest wildcat and its eradication from much of Europe between the late 1700s and early 1900s, recolonization has occurred since 1920-1940 in Belgium, Czech Republic and Slovakia, France, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Populations of wildcats occur on Crete, Corsica, Sardinia, and the Balearic Islands, as well as numerous other small Mediterranean islands. Some authorities consider these populations to be discrete subspecies, however other experts consider them to be feral forms of domestic cats introduced centuries before by humans.

Other Names
  forest wildcat (English)
  chat forestier, chat sauvage, chat silvestre (French)
  Wildkatze (German)
  gato montés, gato silvestre (Spanish)
  vairi katu, antarayin katu (Armenian)
  diwa kotka (Bulgarian)
  ghjattu volpe (Corsican)
  koka divoká (Czech)
  wilde kat (Dutch)
  tkis cata (Georgian)
  vadmacska (Hungarian)
  gatto selvatico (Italian)
  bik (Polish)
  gato bravo (Portugese)
  pisic-slbtic (Romanian)
  dikaja koschka (Russian)
  maka diva (Slovakian)
  yaban kedisi (Turkey)
  sauvadge tché (Belgium)