The birth of wildcat kittens at a Kent wildlife park has sparked fresh hopes for the survival of Britain’s rarest mammal species, conservationists said.

The Wildwood Trust’s Herne Bay park, just outside Canterbury, said the litter were born around nine weeks ago in a dedicated off-show breeding enclosure, to parents Talla and Blair.

Laura Gardner, director of conservation at the trust, said the kittens will play an important role in bringing back the species from the “brink of extinction”.

European wildcats are considered rarer than the Bengal tiger and giant panda, and are the only native cat species surviving in Britain, with a small population still roaming the Scottish Highlands.

But with an estimated fewer than 300 individuals left, the population has been declared “functionally extinct”.