Wild & genetics
Trap-neuter-return
Humanely trapping free-roaming cats, neutering and ear-tipping them, and returning them to where they were found instead of removing or killing them.
The ear tip — a small straight cut to the tip of one ear, done under the same anaesthetic — is the field marker that says this cat has already been through the programme, so it is not trapped and opened up twice. Colonies under TNR stop producing kittens, and the fighting and yowling that go with unneutered toms fall away.
It is not uncontroversial. Conservation bodies point out that a neutered cat still hunts, which matters where colonies sit near vulnerable wildlife or near a wildcat population that they can hybridise with. Where a colony sits determines which argument carries more weight.
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HybridisationBreeding between two distinct populations or species — the main threat to wildcats, because a wildcat that breeds with a domestic cat leaves offspring that are neither.IntrogressionGenes moving from one population into another and staying there, carried in by hybrids that go on to breed back with the parent population.FeralA domestic animal living wild — descended from domesticated stock, unsocialised to people, and genetically still a domestic animal rather than a wild species.LandraceA local population shaped over generations by climate, terrain and the job it does, rather than by a written standard and a closed studbook.DomesticationThe long genetic change that turns a wild population into one adapted to living alongside people — distinct from taming, which happens to an individual.Coefficient of inbreedingThe probability that an animal inherited two identical copies of a gene from a shared ancestor — a single number for how closely related its parents were.