Mission Statement

Project Survival is dedicated to helping researchers and conservationists in their efforts to protect wild cats.  Its goal is to engage the support and enthusiasm of like-minded individuals through education and channel it directly to specific projects.  While focusing on North, Central and South America, Project Survival intends to assist individuals around the world.

Brief History

Project Survival, Cat Conservation Group, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, was founded in 1997 by three staff members of the Project Survival's Cat Haven.  It was inspired by two simple ideas:

• That maintaining wild cats in captivity is not meaningful unless educational efforts are linked to the range country conservation. The Cat Haven staff needed a vehicle to put public interest in wild cats to good effect.

• Project Survival, as a grassroots organization, can provide supporters with a sense of personal involvement by linking them, through the newsletter, to individual conservationists working in the field. Members see the faces and know the names of those who are striving to learn more about cats and protect them in the wild.  We believe the enthusiasm generated by this sense of immediacy will result in greater support for conservation programs.

Project Survival advocates the effective management of wild cats based on facts and not conjecture.  Altogether there are 36 species of wild cats, most of which people have never heard of. Furthermore, biologists known very little about the natural history of many of them. Field studies,   as we start the 21th century, continue to reveal important information about the nutritional requirements and ecology of wild cats.  Without this knowledge there is no basis for sound conservation programs.  Nor can we hope to obtain the support of local people, which is essential if we are to be effective.

Overpopulation, the folk medicinal trade and the steady destruction and fragmentation of habitat are three of the main reasons why some wild populations are being eradicated at unsustainable rates.  It is important to develop funding for studies designed to gather the understanding we need in order to establish effective management programs. To paraphrase Kennedy, "The price of survival is eternal vigilance." 

Please link to Current Projects to read about our achievements in our first year of operation, to see photos and to check out our latest efforts.

Project Survival and the Cat Haven, an article on their relationship