It was once widely distributed across Great Britain, but the population has declined drastically since the turn of the 20th century due to habitat loss and persecution.

Camera-trapping surveys carried out in the Scottish Highlands between 2010 and 2013 revealed that wildcats live foremost in mixed woodland, whereas feral and domestic cats (Felis catus) were photographed mostly in grasslands.

Since all individuals sampled in recent years showed high levels of hybridisation with domestic and feral cats, this population is thought to be functionally extinct in the wild.

Felis grampia was the scientific name proposed in 1907 by Gerrit Smith Miller Jr. who first described the skin and the skull of a wildcat specimen from Scotland.

[2] In 1912, Miller considered it a subspecies, using Felis silvestris grampia after reviewing 22 skins from Scotland in the collection of the Natural History Museum, London.

[3] When Reginald Innes Pocock reviewed the taxonomy of the genus Felis in the late 1940s, he had more than 40 Scottish wildcat specimens in the collection of the Museum at his disposal.

It differs from the domestic cat by stripes on the cheeks and hind legs, the absence of spots, white markings and coloured backs of the ears.

[9] The Scottish wildcat has been present in Britain since the early Holocene, when the British Isles were connected to continental Europe via Doggerland.

[12] Following the decreasing number of gamekeepers after World War I and a re-forestation programme, the wildcat population increased again to its current range.

[16] Between March 1995 and April 1997, thirty-one Scottish wildcats were fitted with radio-collars in the area of the Angus Glens and tracked for at least five months.

[18] Scats collected in Drumtochty Forest and two more sites in the Scottish Highlands contained remains of rabbits, wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus), field and bank voles (Myodes glareolus) and birds.

[18] Captive Scottish wildcats have lived for 15 years, but the lifespan in the wild is much shorter due to road accidents and disease transmitted from feral domestic cats.

[23] An extended controversy in Aberdeenshire pits Swedish energy firm Vattenfall Wind Power against the Scottish wildcat.

The Scottish Wildcat Association states that the energy giant's efforts to raze the old-growth forest for their wind farms would wipe-out the cats there, which number at least 35 as of 2018, a substantial proportion of the known surviving population.

[31] By 2014, the project members had researched nine potential action areas, settling on six, which were considered as having the highest likelihood of conservation success, with work planned beginning in 2015: Morvern, Strathpeffer, Strathbogie, Strathavon, Dulnain and the Angus Glens.

[32] In 2018, the official efforts fell under the auspices of Scottish Wildcat Action, a coalition including government and academic institutions, with an updated list of five priority areas: Strathbogie, the Angus Glens, Northern Strathspey, Morvern and Strathpeffer.

[7] In 2010, as part of the International Year of Biodiversity, the Royal Mail issued a series of 10 stamps celebrating at-risk mammals, one of which depicted the Scottish wildcat.

[49] The 2024 release of the captive-bred wildcats was subject of a two-part documentary titled 'Wildcats: Cait an ann Cunnart' on BBC Alba.

[50] In 2019, Scottish wildcats were the central theme of the first issue of the Journal of Matters Relating to Felines, a student-led general interest magazine produced at the University of Aberdeen.