Another Historic Milestone

We are absolutely thrilled to announce the birth of three Geoffroy's cat kittens here at Hemsley Conservation Centre!  

After keeping Geoffroy's cats for the past eight years, we were delighted to receive a recommended  pairing from the species coordinator at the end of last year. Just a few months after introducing our pair, on 3rd July, we have welcomed these three precious kittens into the world.

This is an incredibly significant milestone. These are the first Geoffroy's cat kittens in the UK to survive beyond one week of age since 2003, and before that, the last successfully reared litter in the UK was back in 1986. (Data according to ZIMS, Species360)

When our original male, Bonito, arrived from Opel Zoo in Germany in 2018, Geoffroy's cats had almost disappeared from UK collections. To now be celebrating this breeding success is a huge achievement for our dedicated animal care team.

For now, the kittens are safely tucked away in their den, where they'll remain for a little while longer before they begin exploring the outside world. Mum is doing an incredible job, especially as this is her very first litter, and we're so proud of how naturally she has taken to motherhood.

As always, we keep our intervention to an absolute minimum, allowing her to rear the kittens as naturally as possible.

Following our success with breeding rusty-spotted cats, we're hopeful this is just the beginning of many more successes with our small cat conservation programmes.

Although Geoffroy's cats are currently classified as Least Concern globally, some localised populations are considered endangered and continue to face threats from habitat loss, fragmentation, road mortality, and conflict with people. During the 1960s through to the 1980s, Geoffroy's cats were extensively hunted for their beautiful pelts, with hundreds of thousands entering the international fur trade.

Keep an eye out for updates in the near future