Moving to a new house is always a gamble. Will the neighbourhood be nice? What state are the pipes in? Will the heating work? And, in my case, what furniture will be available? I couldn’t bring mine from the previous enclosure, you see? And the nearest shop in the Highlands is several miles away. An impossible trip for a wildcat without a driving licence. Or a car. But I shouldn’t have worried so much: my neighbour Rowan is indeed very nice, there are no pipes to maintain, and the main source of heating comes from my thick undercoat. And despite having no car, I do have a tyre to start with! But we will get to this later.

First of all: why the move? Well, you are talking to one of the lucky members of Saving Wildcats’ UK Wildcat Conservation Breeding Programme. Breeding is instrumental for creating a new generation of purer wildcats, but I’m sure you know how breeding within your family members is not a great idea. This is why some of us get subjected to employee relocation, and this time it just so happened that it was my turn. Yet I’m far from the only one. Rowan told me, in fact, that a wildcat from Aigas called Skye was transferred to the Highland Wildlife Park herself a few years ago, and that three of her kittens are now free in the Cairngorms! Quite the story, uh? But let’s get back to my situation.

Alright. So I got to Aigas a couple of years ago, and since then have been lucky enough to have been allocated a large enclosure with a stunning view over Strathglass. The enclosure is furnished with the standard 2 latrines and 2 bedding boxes that all other accommodation on site is equipped with, and I can also count on a series of expertly planned walkways that lead from the floor to the roof in countless combinations. These I use not only to move around and keep fit, but also to scout my surroundings and take meals up high less a marauding keeper decides to steal my lunch. Has that ever happened? No. Could it? Not if I go out of their reach, it can’t! Finally, the walkways lead to what I like to call the lofts: a couple of open boxes in which I can rest without compromising my visibility. Quite fancy, right?

Apart from these, I also have the classic enrichment variety that I’m sure Maree would have told you about: bungee cords, zip-ties, and the like… And a tyre hanging on a cord. As much as I hated it when my keeper first started putting food there, I now love it so much that I sometimes check it out even when I know there’s no food in it. But something I’m sure Maree would be jealous of if she could see into my enclosure, is what at first might look like a pile of rocks in a corner. This is in fact a feat of modern engineering performed by the Aigas rangers: a cairn all of my own, Nairn’s cairn (I challenge you to say that out loud five times), free standing and a great hiding spot for potential prey to hide.

But while the visual and structural sides of a house are the most straightforward to consider, each sense needs to be satisfied before it can be called a home. Sight? Alright. Touch? The soil beneath me, the wood all around, the grass and the pine needles sure do provide a range of comfortable textures to walk on. Smell? And here comes the cherry on top, for the whole enclosure is adorned with branches of freshly cut brash from a nearby plantation; bringing together the removal of non-native species of trees with the wellbeing of us wildcats. Each time the brash is changed, it gives us new smells to explore, new surfaces to scent-mark, and new decorations to liven up the enclosure. It just so happens that mine has recently been changed, so that my home is now looking ready to host guests. Who knows? Maybe some of my old friends from the Highland Wildlife Park will soon join me when the new wildcat enclosure next door gets completed, or maybe we will get new conspecifics from even further away. We’ll see. For the time being, I’ll keep chatting with Rowan and loving every inch of my Aigas home.

Profile: Nairn is a 3-year-old wildcat that arrived at Aigas from the Highland Wildlife Park in 2024. Since then, he has quickly acclimatized to his new living conditions, and can often be seen interacting with his neighbour Rowan. His energetic personality and youthful demeanour gift many laughs to our keepers.

Want to help us looking after Rowan and the other resident wildcats? You can adopt a wildcat on the Aigas Field Centre website and make a donation to the Breeding Programme.

words by Maria Giulia Checchi, photos by Jacob New