Overview

Tracking The Highland Tiger follows our search for the Scottish wildcat, a predator that has outlasted wolves and bears, and now sits on the edge of disappearing. We travel with Marianne Taylor through places like Speyside and Ardnamurchan, where sightings are rare and evidence can be as thin as a paw print in mud. Alongside the field trips, we get the longer story: how persecution pushed wildcats back into the last rough ground, and how breeding with domestic cats now threatens to erase the wildcat as a distinct animal. We meet people trying to find, measure, protect, and in some cases rebuild what is left.

Writing & Voice

We found Taylor clear and direct. We like how our enthusiasm never turns into fantasy, because the book keeps returning to what can be proved on the ground. We move between travel scenes, natural history, and hard conservation detail without losing momentum. We also like the steady respect for the animal itself, as something shaped by place, hunger, and fear, not by human stories alone.

Content & Perspective

We stay close to the reality of searching for something that does not want to be found. We watch how tracking works through camera traps, local knowledge, scat, and long waits, and we also watch how quickly hope can outrun evidence. The book keeps our focus on what threatens wildcats now, especially habitat pressure and hybridisation, and it shows how conservation work becomes a mix of science, politics, and persuasion.

Themes

We keep coming back to loss, responsibility, and identity. We see how easily a species can be reduced to a symbol, and how much harder it is to protect a living animal with messy genetics and a shrinking range. We also sit with the uncomfortable truth that the main danger is human made, from past hunting to present day land use and pet cat spread. The book asks what saving something means when time is short.

What Worked

• Trip based structure that keeps the story rooted in real places and real effort.
• Clear conservation context that explains why the wildcat is in trouble now.
• Good balance between myth, history, and the blunt facts of biology.

Minor Quibbles

• Some stretches of background arrive in dense bursts, and we wanted a little more breathing room.
• The scarcity of confirmed wildcat encounters can leave us craving one more solid moment of contact.

Final Thoughts

We finished with the uneasy sense that admiration is easy, but protecting an animal this rare means choices that hurt.

Rating: ★★★★½ / 5