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One of the world鈥檚 smallest and cutest wild cats is on the road to extinction, even though it is more resilient than most species.

G眉i帽as (), also known as kodkods, live in Chile and are the smallest cats in the Americas. They can weigh as little as 2-2.5 kilograms, half the size of most domestic cats.

and there could be just 10,000 adults remaining 鈥� half the number of lions left today. of the University of Kent, UK and his colleagues set out to find what was causing the decline.

Using questionnaires, camera traps and remote sensing, the team found that the biggest threat to g眉i帽as is a change to the way farms are owned. Larger farms are being sold and split into smaller farms, bringing more people onto the land.

Miniature cats

Unlike their bigger cousins , g眉i帽as seem to be able to tolerate the loss of up to 80 per cent of their habitat. They can even live on intensive farmland.

However, as farms become smaller and human populations increase, people may persecute the g眉i帽as more. Whilst the cats are most happy catching moths and rodents, they also have a taste for chicken, so people kill them to prevent attacks on their poultry. Of the farmers surveyed, 10 per cent admitted to killing g眉i帽as.

Having more people on these smaller parcels of land also means more pets, like domestic cats and dogs. These larger predators can outcompete the pint-sized g眉i帽as, contributing to localised extinctions.

鈥淭hese results show the g眉i帽a is able to withstand a certain amount of habitat loss, but requires patches of forest to remain in agricultural landscapes for it to survive in the long term,鈥� says G谩lvez.

鈥淚t also shows that we cannot discard intensive agricultural lands as important conservation areas,鈥� he says. G谩lvez suggests focusing conservation efforts on the largest farms and incentivising landowners not to subdivide their farms.