IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group

The IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group brings together more than 200 of the world's leading cat experts, including scientists, wildlife managers and conservationists from 65 countries, dedicated to advancing the understanding and conservation of the world's 40 wild living cat species. It is responsible for the global monitoring and conservation of all wild living cat species and is one of over 160 specialist groups forming the Species Survival Commission (SSC) of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Its main tasks include maintaining and updating the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species for cat taxa, supporting Green Status Assessments of cat taxa, developing conservation strategies, action plans and policy guidelines, advising governmental and private organisations engaged in species conservation, and working with international conventions such as CITES and CMS.

The Cat SG was founded in 1971 at a meeting of international cat specialists at the Lion Safari in Florida. Professor Paul Leyhausen of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioural Physiology in Germany was elected Chairman and held the chair until 1982. He was succeeded by Dr. Norman Myers, a British conservation scientist. In 1983 Peter Jackson, a British specialist on tigers, was appointed to the Chair and held this position until his retirement in 2000, while remaining an active member of the group. He was succeeded by Swiss carnivore specialists Drs. Urs and Christine Breitenmoser, who currently serve as emeritus chairs. Dr. Sugoto Roy and Dr. Tadeu de Oliveira have taken over the roles of co-chairs as of early 2026. In 1996, the Cat SG's seminal piece of work, "Wild Cats: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan" (IUCN 1996), was published, becoming a standard reference on the natural history of the cats. Cat News, a newsletter for Cat SG, was launched in 1984 and includes scientific papers and news reports. In 2000, when Peter Jackson retired, he donated his library to the Cat Specialist Group. In 2002, the Digital Cat Library, the electronic version of documents relevant to cat conservation, went online. In 2005, the Cat Specialist Group Web portal together with its family of collated websites went online. In 2023, the updated version of the Cat Specialist Group Web Portal was launched.

1. 1IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group | conserving wild cat speciescatsg.org
2. 2History | IUCN CatSGcatsg.org