Latest News - More than 100 volunteers out this winter helping save the Scottish wildcat

Pictured above are just some of Strathbogie Wildcat Priority Area's volunteers

There's an army of volunteers in the woods this winter, working to save Scottish Wildcats.

More than 100 local volunteers have joined in the quest to find and protect this endangered native cat.

Our volunteers are running trail cameras which detect all sorts of wildlife in our woodlands - and the luckiest of them have been rewarded with glimpses of our rarest mammal.

Our volunteers vary from retired people who are keen to help their local wildlife, young university graduates looking to gain skills in wildlife field work and local families running cameras in their gardens. We even have farmers helping host cat survey stations.

Our youngest volunteers are in primary school and we have a group of local teenage volunteers from Moray Wildlife Watch Group involved.

Why would they volunteer to spend hours in walking in wintry woodlands, sometimes deep in snow and in freezing temperatures, to reach remote survey sites?

Perhaps it’s the thrill of the chance to see this rare mammal, or perhaps the challenge of working with a super elusive species? Or perhaps it’s just for the fun of spending time in our wonderful woodlands helping wildlife using fun modern technology.

Whatever their motives, we are grateful for all our volunteers help, without which we couldn’t hope to cover the huge range of potential wildcat habitats we work in.

So we’d like to say a big THANK YOU to our wonderful wildcat volunteers this winter!

If you want to help us find wildcats and have your own trail camera, here's everything you need to know in this handy leaflet