New Sand Cat Science Revealed

What do you know about sand cats? Learn more about these small cats from Panthera scientist Grégory Breton as he documents his study of them in Morocco’s deserts — in the first-ever telemetry study of these little-researched small cats. 

You might recognize sand cats from their miniature frames and whimsical faces. In 2017, photos from a study I conducted in Morocco went viral: popular media and global news outlets such as National Geographic shared the faces of likely the first-ever sand cat kittens captured on camera in their North African range. 

Everyone who knows about sand cats loves them (and rightly so). But love isn't enough — more data and information about them and their ecology must be collected to understand these mysterious yet captivating creatures.

These small cats live in arid climates, making it difficult to track them during the day. Their small size also makes it difficult to monitor them, necessitating VHF collars. 

Despite these impediments, from 2015 to 2019, my team, including Dr. Alexander Sliwa from Cologne Zoo, Saad Azizi and Mahmoud Zine Eddine from Rabat Zoo conducted research in southwestern Morocco to fit sand cats with VHF telemetry collars and determine the dynamics of sand cat ecology and their home range sizes. What we found is truly eye-opening, and we hope that our research will assist in guiding this species’ conservation.

Our journey began in a scorching desert, with temperatures that can soar up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) during the summer months. Local herders flock by with goats or camels, often accompanied by guard dogs. Though the flat, arid land may sometimes look bleak and barren, it is alive with incredible wildlife including poisonous snakes, golden eagles, African golden wolves and African wildcats. 

In this vast desert, we set about to understand sand cat home ranges. We began our work at night. Riding around atop our vehicle, I would shine a spotlight into the darkness, noticing when the eyes of a carnivore would reflect back. In total, we spotted 47 sand cats, captured 41 and ended up collaring 22 with VHF telemetry collars.

After fitting the sand cats with their collars, our work had just begun. We now had to track them across the desert, under the harsh North African sun during the day and in the cold against strong winds at night in difficult terrain to navigate. While it sometimes proved easy to track them during the day, when they were less active, we ran into issues. Cats could move beyond the area where our technology could detect them within a single day, making it very difficult to track all of them down and estimate where their ranges could overlap. They could return months later, complicating things. However, we accumulated strong data for 10 cats. We even managed to track one cat for over a year: a male that ventured far and wide. It is this behavior which we found so eye-opening; we discovered that sand cat home ranges are likely considerably larger than previously estimated. 

Several sand cat males ventured far across this uninterrupted landscape, leading us down new avenues in sand cat and small cat research. Amazingly, we believe they now likely have the largest ranges among cats of their genus, which include black-footed cats and African wildcats. What could be the reasons for this?

We think this is likely due to ecological conditions. When vegetation (including prey) is relatively plentiful and habitat is uninterrupted, sand cats can thrive in smaller home ranges. However, when vegetation and rodent populations are collapsing due to weather conditions and/or when they are disturbed by human activities, livestock or other carnivores inhabiting a landscape, sand cats may venture far and wide and increase their range. Some of our results even lead us to think that this species could be semi-nomadic, which has never been reported for any wild cat. 

The data — coupled with the fact that the sand cats we captured and recorded had no fresh wounds, broken teeth and very few scars — means that it is likely that sand cats exhibit little territoriality and tolerate each other across their ranges. This beloved cat may indeed share habitat with others of its species — maybe their perception does match their nature, at least towards other sand cats.

For sand cat conservation, this hypothetical social structure and our still limited knowledge present an issue. Sand cats are classified as Least Concern by the IUCN; however, this assumes they are present equally in desert habitat and maintain smaller home ranges than our study reveals. If the home ranges are indeed larger and they are only occupying certain parts of the desert as our study suggests, they could reasonably be upgraded to Near Threatened — causing us to redouble our conservation efforts. 

There is still so much to learn about sand cats. With the future comes more opportunity to understand their home range sizes and the new territory we still leave unexplored. For now, I will keep sharing videos and pictures of this charismatic cat. For the sake of their conservation, they need it. 

Read the full study in the Journal of Arid Environments.