The Fairy Creature

In Scottish mythology, Cat Sith is a fairy creature, sometimes a witch, resembling a large black cat with a white spot on its chest -notorious for haunting

the Scottish Highlands. 

The creature can move in silence,

 and strike before its seen.  

Cat Sith is legendary and ferocious,

with a bold and fiery spirit,

and of all the Scottish wildlife,

it is the creature considered to be

the most "untameable".
                                           Kerry Kilshaw

Leaving the Highlands always seems a little surreal to me  -as if one should pass through a misty veil that separates the wilderness from the city of Edinburgh.  Perhaps it was there, I just didn't see it. Instead, I had allowed my mind to sway back and forth between a wakeful state and slumber, as the bus ride transported me back towards the city -leaving all the waterfalls and heather-covered mountains of the Highlands somewhere behind that veil of mist.

Upon my arrival in Edinburgh, I took time to settle into my B&b before pulling out the research papers (all 3,200 minutes of them!), and turning on the computer.  It's an odd feeling in this age of technological dependency, to press the "start" button on  a computer -only to find oneself  starring at a totally black screen.  I fortunately had done a backup on the portable device back home before I left Sweden.  If I hadn't, the research, the blog, and this blogger would all have come to an untimely, dramatic end.  Heart failure is not a joking matter!

Two weeks have passed since the burial of my computer, and now all is well.  The research for the first writing deadline has been completed, and I'm slowly starting to gather up speed for the second stage of the project.  I love the process of writing.  It forces me to sift through a multitude of details -a high class junkyard in my case, in order to find the core of what's  truly important -and in this project, I believe I have.

To be honest, when I first began the research, I knew very little about cats -in fact, I wasn't much of a cat person at all.  I respected their independence, but I really didn't understand it.  However, studying these little creatures for the last 3 months has surprisingly taught me a great deal about myself.  They taught me - despite all the research that's been done, and all the conclusions that other people have drawn, that a trainer and an animal start their relationship with a clean slate ...that you shape the relationship with love, first and foremost, before you ever reach for a reinforcer.

Very few people have attempted to train a European or Scottish Wildcat, and those who have, generally have used a 'trial and error' method -which typically ends in an 'error'.  During my training sessions with the European wildcats, I attempted to use a new training method developed at the University of North Texas.  I will go more into detail in the next blog, but for now, let me just say -It was highly effective! 

Untameable? -perhaps. 

Untrainable? -not in the least.

Lesson Learned:

You don't always have to love

only that which loves you back

                                                         

                                                           Mike Tomkies

                                                            Naturalist

An Chat Fiadhaich

"Na Bean D'on Chat Gun Lamhainn"  

"Touch Not the Chat bot a Glove" 

(Olde Gaelic Saying)

 

To date, the meaning of the old saying above seems to be somewhat vague...depending if one reads the word 'bot' as 'but', or just as it is, which would then mean in Gaellic 'without'. In the highlands of Scotland, however, it clearly is clan specific - and historically  the inference most likely shifted in proportion to either the battle at hand, or the miel 'in hand'.   As for my first encounter with the phrase, I read the words to mean that one should wear a glove before touching a wildcat, which clearly made good sense to me, but to the 14 clans that make up the "Clan Chattan Association" (translation = the Clan of Cats ...yes, there is such a thing!), it was a warning to anyone who threatened any member of their clan

Along with many other interesting tales, I was led to believe that the Scottish Wildcat was much larger, and much more fiesty than its European counterpart, but I'm happy -and quite relieved to say that this only seems to be a spin-off from the animal's legendary fame -one well-earned after the creature survived the ice-age and then moved on to a 9,000-year reign of terror in the British Isles.

Upon my arrival at the Scottish wildlife park, I was greeted by 3 very lively female wildcats, and 1 easy-going ol' Tom.  The Tom and his mate live together in 2 enclosures that fortunately have been opened up to give them a little more leg- room. This extra space was needed for the expansion of their family 7 weeks ago.

                                          (see "Kitt" and "Katt" below)



 









The other 2 female cats live in a separate enclosure, but conveniently still  within view of their neighbors.  This makes for better spying and intimidation practices,  extremely gratifying  activities that occur whenever there's a lull in the action.  Time in between the spying and intimidation festivities is spent stalking creatures that get too close to their enclosures, chasing butterflies, playing tag-and-swat with each other, and for the family unit -there is always the occasional hiss and growl that keeps the kids in-line when they practice their hunting skills on the black tips of their parents' tails !

It's a very different feline energy that exists here in the Highland enclosures.  There's much more cat-to-cat interaction and playing going on.  I have yet to see any of the cats display fearful or stress-related behaviors towards the zookeepers or even the most unruly of the park's guests. 

My goal over the next 2 weeks is to try and understand the variables that might be contributing to such behavioral differences between the Swedish cats and the Scottish cats.

One of the walkways and a small portion of the enclosure

I've begun the process by looking at the enclosures themselves. With an overall "Laura Ashley meets Cirque du Soleil" kind of ambiance in  the Highland's design, they are a bit smaller than the Swedish enclosures, but still  nicely forested inside -giving the cats many resting, playing  and perching areas.  The most striking difference, however, is that of the aerial walkways -which run like monorail tracks for gerbils on speed throughout what appears at first glance to be Scotland's entire network of remaining forests.  There's no shortage of places for the cats to go as  the walkways lead them over red squirrel and wildbird feeding stations, directly above and across visitor trails, around both sides of the pine martin's enclosure, and if the park should ever choose, the doors that lead to the other cats' enclosure could even be opened up -thus making for one giant wildcat metropolis and I'm quite certain, the speedy exodus of one particular pine martin. 

Tomorrow, I shall have a look at the zookeeper's daily routine with the cats -more specifically, their feeding schedule, enclosure cleaning schedule, enrichment and training, vet check-ups, health-care procedures, and any other information that the 'keepers' might be able to provide.

Clearly, something here is making a difference -thankfully.

Lesson learned:

Whatever one thinks they know about Scotland,

 the tales -just like the country, definitely become more grandious and colorful
the further north one goes.
                                   carol