Carole Baskin criticises pet store 256 Exotics

Carole Baskin has weighed in on the story of two African servals on the loose in Alabama. As you probably know, Carole Baskin is the founder and owner of Big Cat Rescue (BCR), in Florida. In a Facebook post, she has asked people to file a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) complaint against a Huntsville-based pet store called 256 Exotics (2421 Winchester Rd NE, Huntsville, AL 35811, United States). The store owner had reported that two servals were missing from a barn on her property. As at 16 September 2021, the servals had not been recaptured.

Serval. Image: Pixabay.

Baskin wants the USDA to seize the exotic cats at the pet store and send them to legitimate sanctuaries where they are not bred and where they cannot be bought by the public.

Associated page: Serval leaps vertically about 9 feet from a static start (and info about living with servals)

She also stated that Alabama regulations state that although dogs and cats need to be vaccinated against rabies there is no approved rabies vaccine for any of the exotic cat species. Vaccines have only been tested on domestic dogs and cats.

Also, she stated that it is clearly illegal to release servals into America because they are non-native to that country. They come from Africa so they're going to be stuck in an enclosure or a cage for the rest of their lives. Under these circumstances, it is only fair right that they live out their lives in a legitimate and well-run sanctuary.

The owner of the pet store mention said that the servals are being tracked and they believe that they are near the store.

Servals not infrequently escape their captivity which could be a person's home or an enclosure. You will find that there are a good number of stores on the Internet about servals escaping. Often, they end up being killed by the authorities because they are dangerous or believed to be dangerous to the public. In fact, domesticated servals are not really dangerous. There will tend to be fearful of people and won't attack anybody unless they are provoked.

Escaped pet serval in Atlanta is found and confiscated

ATLANTA, GEORGIA, USA-NEWS AND COMMENT: Recently there was a story about a serval escaping from their owner's home where they were a pet. The cat ended up on a neighbour's bed where the property owner, a woman, was sleeping. She woke up to find this large but domesticated wild cat next to her and she was terrified! As you would be. Well, the upshot is that the cat was captured and the owner wants his or her cat returned but they won't get her because it's illegal to keep exotic animals such as a serval as pets in Georgia.

Nala an escaped pet serval who has been confiscated as they are illegal in Georgia

The serval has been taken to a holding facility and from there it will be relocated to a wildlife sanctuary eventually. The scary event described in the first paragraph happened on June 30. I've just found out who the owner is. She is Anna Fyfe. She said that she moved to Georgia from South Carolina where it is perfectly legal to own a pet serval. The serval's name is Nala. She's thankful that the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) captured her cat which has helped to make people feel safe.

She said that Nala is harmless (I'd dispute that). Although she understands why they are taking her cat away to a sanctuary she said that: "I'm just devastated because Nala is my baby."

We are told that the cat was captured by a neighbour last Monday who returned Nala to Fyfe at which time she was told by the authorities that she would have to give the cat up. No charges have been filed. She says that she thinks DNR should return the cat to her to allow her to take her back to South Carolina, immediately. That, she says, is a better outcome than Nala spending the rest of our life in a new environment.

Comment: the story reinforces the advice that owners of exotic animals should check the law wherever they are, in whatever country before they import an animal to that country. In developed countries it is normal for restrictions to be in place regarding the ownership of exotic animals.

As usual, it is the animal who suffers the most because this serval is now going to spend their life in a strange sanctuary which will take some adjusting. Remember that all cats have a home range and this cat has been moved from pillar to post. From her South Carolina home to a Georgia home and now to a sanctuary with quite a lot of stress in between. This is not good cat ownership. All because Anna Fyfe either didn't check the law or ignored it. I suspect it's the latter. So, she's saying it's unfair that Nala now has to spend the rest of her life in a sanctuary but it's her fault. She does not have the right to say it's unfair.

There should be a complete ban on the ownership of servals as pets anywhere. In America they are quite popular although relatively rare as pets. They often escape because they are confined to a home which is highly unsuitable as a like to have about 10 km² when living in the wild. You can imagine how trapped and confined they feel which motivates them to escape as Nala did.

If you click the link below, you'll be taken to a lot of articles about the serval which may interest you.

STORIES AND FACTS ABOUT THE SERVAL

Serval bites firefighter as he battles a blaze in Vancouver

VANCOUVER, WASHINGTON, USA-NEWS AND VIEWS: a firefighter was bitten by a serval while battling a blaze inside a Washington home. The serval is an exotic pet for some people. It is a large cat. They are the size of a large dog. They are a wild animal and although exotic in appearance they make unsuitable companion animals in my honest opinion. This is borne out by the fact that many servals are abandoned to shelters or they escape their homes and our not infrequently killed outside the home.

Serval playing with a white rabbit at A1 Savannahs in Ponca City, OK, USA. Photo: Kathryn Stucki.

Around 2:40 PM last Sunday a fire crew from Clark County Fire District 6 together with the Vancouver Fire Department attended a house fire. As usual, they worked to extinguish the flames which spread, it is reported by The News Tribune, to the attic.

Some of the firefighters went through the home looking for any companion animals or people to make sure that all was clear.

One firefighter encountered the serval. He was bitten on his hand by the cat. The bite went through his glove and injured his finger. Comment: it appears that the firefighter was trying to rescue the cat from the building. In other words the firefighter probably tried to pick up or lead the cat out of the home. That was never going to work without a struggle but the firefighter perhaps would not be aware of that difficulty.

Accordingly, they called animal control who were able to effectively take charge and take the cat to a suitable facility. The cat was unharmed. The serval is not listed as prohibited under local legal provisions. It is not listed as a potentially dangerous wild animal under state law. You may know that the male serval is the parent of the F1 Savannah cat.

The firefighter was treated at a local hospital for his bite and returned to work today. The serval has been returned to its owner. It is reported that the owner agreed to make arrangements to make sure that it can't bite anyone else! Comment: if another fire occurs or some other emergency then there is no guaranteeing that the serval won't bite somebody. It's impractical to state anything else. The cat will become fearful and aggressively defensive under these sorts of circumstances. That is entirely normal and to be expected.

The story highlights, in my view, the unsuitability of keeping servals as pets in America. There are some people in the UK, as well, to keep them as pets. But once you have been near one of these cats, as I have, you quickly realise that they are quite intimidating especially the males who are bigger than the females. 

You would not want one in your home unless you are in enamoured with the concept of living with an exotic wild creature. In which case you might put to one side the downsides such as being injured or having to deal with urine scent marking within the home. In addition there is always the possibility that they might escape.

Being confined to a typical home is highly unsuitable for a serval who needs around 10 km² or more as their home range in the wild. There will be an endless desire for this animal to seek more space. That's going to be a constant worry for a concerned owner.

You need a license to keep a serval in the UK

I have just written about a young, one-year-old serval being taken away by the police from a man who was looking after her in Putney, London, UK. He didn't have a licence but he claimed that he was applying for one. He also claims that he wasn't trying to evade the requirement to have a licence. He is distraught because this serval, called Zena, was in a close friendship with his daughter. The man's name is James Brown. He appears to live with a female partner in a house but it might be a ground floor flat.

Zena a one year old pet serval who was confiscated from her owner because he did not have a licence (UK law for certain wild cat species). Photo: James Brown.

He says the cat is friendly and there were no problems. Although he adopted Zena from another person who gave her up because he hadn't realised how difficult it was to look after a serval. This proves my point made in a recent article I wrote on this website about the unsuitability of looking after a serval or any other wild cat species as a pet. In the UK some wild cat species require a licence in order to keep them and others don't. Personally I don't see the logic in the list which I have reproduced below. See below:

Law on keeping exotic wild cat species as pets - license required for some species.

Zena will be checked out medically and then relocated to a wildlife sanctuary for what appears to be the remainder of her life. James Brown will not see her again, I suspect. He has petitioned online to get her back but so far without success.

A neighbour ratted on him because they saw zena in the window looking out the window as cats do. It was a bit of cat television for the serval and a bit of anguish for the serval's owner. In the UK you apply for a licence from the local authority. In James Brown's case that would have been Wandsworth County Council.

I suspect that it isn't a pushover to get a licence because you will have to demonstrate that you have the means, time, education, skills, commitment and facilities to do a decent job of it. Not everybody can demonstrate that. You have to go into adopting and looking after a wild cat as a pet with your eyes wide open both to the commitment required and the legal requirements.

In this instance the man failed because he didn't go into it with enough preparation and knowledge. Although, as he claims, there appears to have been no real issues but we don't know the full story. As I mentioned in my previous article it can be difficult to look after a serval in the home. They sometimes spray urine which is very distressing and the amount of spaces well below that required emotionally for a serval (they need up to 10 square kilometres). This results in them trying to escape and not infrequently they succeed because they are very slippery and difficult to confine.

Once they get out of the home they are incredibly vulnerable to being hit by vehicles on the road or being injured by people. This last point particularly applies in America where there are a plethora of handguns and rifles inside homes. There have been cases of escaped servals being shot because the neighbours fear that they are dangerous and see them as an escaped wild animal perhaps from a zoo or something like that.

Serval cats as pets

Do servals make good pets? They can be very attractive. Look at this photograph below of a young serval in someone's home sitting on the bed looking blissfully happy. What's wrong with that? It looks as though it worked out very well. But we don't know the back story. And I don't want to paint an incorrect or too negative a picture because it can work out quite well (rarely).

Pet serval looking happy. Photo: Cats of Instagram

But in my opinion having a serval as a pet is likely not to work out that well for various reasons. Firstly, they are a wild cat species. If they are raised from a new-born kitten by humans they might fit in quite well. But if they are adopted as a young animal then they will never be a true domestic cat. They might spray in the home to mark territory which is incredibly upsetting to the owner but very reassuring to the cat!

This is a tamed serval at A1 Savannahs many years ago. I made the video. He was a quite small serval. Probably a subadult.

They might want to escape the home but you've got to keep them inside because they can't be allowed to wander around outside unsupervised. There have been countless numbers of servals who have escaped homes and ended up being killed on the roads or shot by some policeman in America because they terrify the neighbours. 

The fact that they want to escape the confinement of their tiny space (from their point of view) is indicative of a stressed unhappiness. The problem is that people regard them as exotic pets like domestic cats when they are not. 

And sometimes owners declaw servals which is cruel and immoral. If you want to adopt a serval then at least adopt the entire animal and accept them. But they are quite big; the size of a good size dog but much slenderer. They're bigger than greyhound dogs for example. I'm referring to full-sized adults servals. They will vary in size and the female serval might be about the size of greyhound. But they won't be as placid as a greyhound. Not normally anyway. It does depend upon circumstances and I don't want to generalise.

Martin Stucki formerly A1 Savannahs owner and tame serval. Photo: MikeB.

I can see why owners of servals declaw them because I was slapped by a male serval once because I must've upset him as I was inside his enclosure. He slapped me on the hand and it hurt because their claws are about the size of a good-sized dog. And they hiss and make demands on their owners. You've got to be a dedicated cat lover with plenty of time on your hands. I don't think you can go to work and own serval. You have to be there all the time.

PAGE ON THE SERVAL

I would not like to go to work knowing I had a serval in my living room. You would not know what you would come back to. I just don't think it works out but exceptionally it might, as mentioned, because you may live in a big house in the country with plenty of space around the house and a big garden together with an enclosure outside. You can make compromises and make adjustments to your lifestyle so that your serval lives as contentedly as possible.

Sienna Jones, four, towers over Anubis now but the serval will eventually weigh up to 50lb. Photo: LAURA DALE/CATERS NEWS AGENCY

Click this link if you want to read the story of the serval and the child in the photo above.

But you have to remember that servals need about 10 km² or more to live in normally. If they are confined to a standard home it is going to feel like prison to them. And I believe that this feeling will be there whether they were raised from a new-born kitten in a home or not. I believe that this emotion is in their DNA. They need to roam over 10 km² to hunt. That's their territory. That's their home range. They inherit that trait just to stress the point! It is why they want to escape and they are sneaky 😏.

That is another reason why I don't think it works to have a serval as a pet. But they are popular in America because people consider them to be exotic and people like to possess beautiful things. And don't forget the conservation aspects of it. To keep a serval as a pet I believe undermines conservation of the serval and all wild cats. We should leave them alone, give them space to live, not take their space from them or destroy their habitat. Let them thrive away from people. 

Servals come from Africa.

Domestic Cat Predatory Behavior

Expectations, knowledge and education are important if you keep a cat. If you have a reasonable knowledge of cat behavior and sensible expectations based on that knowledge, it is highly likely that you will have a successful relationship with your cat and that you will respect your cat and cats generally.

Take predatory behavior. It is said that the cat is the world's most skilled predator. It does not matter if we are referring to wild or domestic cats. In the wild, cats have varying degrees of success when capturing prey. Sometimes the success rate is unexpectedly low reflecting the difficulty of catching prey. Apparently feral and domestic cats have a success rate as low as 17% when hunting rabbits (Corbett 1979). See hunting success of wild cats.

You can see the predator in the cat when she pokes a pen around a desk and it falls onto the floor - it is fun to see that or a bit irritating. However,  when your indoor/outdoor cat comes in with a mouse and shows it to you after playing with it all over your hardwood floor, you might become a bit squeamish or annoyed. A reason that some people find this irritating is because they have probably fed their cat the best available commercially manufactured food. Their cat is not hungry. They think their cat gets a kick out of cruelly playing with and then killing a cute mouse. It can be distressing. I understand that.

It helps to accept our cat's predatory behavior if we understand that the motivation to hunt and the feeling of being hungry are separated in a cat.

Cats are finely tuned animals that respond to stimuli that tells them that prey is in the vicinity. The cat will automatically respond to these stimuli such as the high pitched sounds of a mouse and rustling in undergrowth. This automatic response to the presence of prey means that the cat is hunting when at maximum strength as opposed to being hungry and perhaps underfed, thereby in a possibly weakened condition. Killing prey surplus to requirements is a proactive measure in the interests of survival. We should respect cats for that.

Desmond Morris says that the domestic cat plays with his prey as a cautionary measure and/or because the domestic cat has less opportunity to hunt and so extends the process. Some wild cats also play with prey; servals come to mind (they kill 4,000 rodents per annum).  Batting the mouse all over the floor is safer for the cat than biting it in the nape of the neck to kill it.

Female domestic cats will bring prey back to your home as an instinctive desire to teach offspring how to hunt and kill prey. We should be proud of her rather than annoyed.

In the modern, sterilized human world we need to get a bit rough and raw when we keep a domestic cat that goes outside. Despite 9,500 years of domestication and adaptation the domestic cat is wild cat heart.

There is much debate about the effect of the domestic cat on wildlife. The effect is often exaggerated especially by bird conservationists but there must be some effect and it would be nice to reduce the predation of wildlife by the domestic cat. This can be done by keeping the cat in at all times or at least at dawn and dusk, the preferred times, it is thought, for a domestic cat to hunt. However, is that fair on the cat; to prevent the expression of entirely natural behavior? In addition, restricting natural innate activity can lead to stress and unwanted behavior such as aggression. Clearly a good substitute to predation needs to be found and that is play that we manage. However, with the best will in the world, I don't think people want to play with their cat for long periods or at all. That is why manufacturers invent devices that do the work for you. Domestic cat predatory behavior can certainly present problems.

Associated: Domestic Cat and Mouse Picture.

Serval Kills 4,000 Rodents A Year

The servals of the Serengeti kill 4,000 rodents, 260 snakes and 130 birds each year on average. Servals on average make 0.8 kills per hour in the daytime and 0.5 kills per hour during nighttime (or 1 kill every 2 hours).

They do this hunting/killing while covering the territory at 2.5 kills for every kilometer travelled during the day and at 1.9 kills for every kilometer travelled at night. Young servals (juveniles) kill more frequently at 4.2 kills per kilometer.

Obviously servals don't kill in a routine manner so there will be extended periods when kills do not take place.

The study of kill rates is part of "hunting energetics". Energetics is the study of the transformation of energy. In this instance the amount of energy needed in the form of consumed prey to sustain the serval in his activities including hunting.

By comparison the lynx in the north of Sweden make 1.2 kills every 24 hours. That is much less than the serval.  It is less in the south at 0.6 kills/24 hours and even lower in the east at 0.3 kills/24 hours.

I wonder how many rodents a year the feral cat kills? If there are 80 million feral cats in the USA and each one kills 500 rodents per year that makes 40 billion rodents killed by feral cats yearly. That's a bit of a thought.

Source: page 90 of The Natural History of the Wild Cats by Andrew Kitchener. ISBN 0-8014-8498-7

Sprayed by Tiger Urine

If you go down to the zoo today be prepared for a big surprise! We know that our domestic cats can spray sometimes. This means marking territory by spraying a horizontal jet of urine against a vertical object behind the cat. Male cats have a "specially retractable penis" that allows them to leave these scent markers at a height that is perfect for other cats to sniff.

It is relative rare that domestic cats spray objects because they are usually neutered or spayed and domesticated and don't really have a home range to protect.

A home range is the area that the cat considers his or her home territory. They can be extremely large for the bigger wildcats such as the snow leopard. When the area is large it is impossible for the cat to physically patrol the area and see off intruders so scent marking is the next best thing. It says to intruders that the occupying cat is here and recently.

Here are some examples of how frequently wild cats spray their territory:

• Male serval - up to 41.2 times per kilometer (46 times per hour).
• Bobcats spray urine from 1.9-7.5 times per km.
• Canada lynx spray more frequently than bobcats at about 10x per km.
• Tigers spray mark territory "up to 11 times every 30 mins.

I found these to be high numbers. I had not realised how frequently wild cats sprayed their territory.

If you are visiting a zoo and looking into the tiger enclosure don't get too close because if you do and see the tiger turning around presenting his rear end towards you, you know what you are about to receive - a large shower of prime quality tiger urine. This has happened and will no doubt happen again.

I have been sprayed with serval urine when I entered a serval cage to photograph them - there were two, one male and one female. The male, a large cat, sprayed me very quickly. I had no chance to get out of the way. The picture below is of the cat who sprayed me.

Morpheus at A1 Savannahs.

You can read about Morpheus on this page. The information on spraying frequencies comes from The Natural History of the Wild Cats by Andrew Kitchener ISBN 0-8014-8498-7.

A cure for a serval with bladder stones

This is a nice story by Dolly Guck about her domesticated serval "Sawabu" who developed a urinary tract infection (UTI) and who had calcium oxalate stones in his bladder. The urinary tract problems were first noticed when Sawabu was doing one of his tricks at a public meeting. He embarrassingly peed on a table. This is the exact same symptom you get with domestic cats who have urinary infections. For my cat it was cystitis. The urine is bloody too - readily noticeable.

X-rays revealed the bladder stones and the vet decided to operation to remove them. Calcium oxalate crystals cannot dissolved naturally through a change in diet hence the need to physically remove them. The operation went well. The stones were about one centimeter in diameter (think the size of the nail of your little finger).

The vet administered antibiotics, the standard treatment for UTIs. Sawabu was well bahaved throughout. He had to wear a protective collar and he put up it with just like a domestic cat.

The interesting bit is this. What caused the stones? What was the underlying condition that prompted the development of the infection?

Dolly does not say in her article and her vet does not say either. However the cure does tell us I think. A colleague of the vet recommended a diet of Royal Canin High Protein Calorie Control canned food - three cans per day. Sawabu's diet to that point was some raw plus "crunchy Mazuri" and Zupreem canned small feline. Sawabu did not like the Royal Canin but Dolly practiced tough love and made him eat it. Good thing too.

I will presume that crunchy Mazuri is specialist dry cat food for "exotic felines". It is dry cat food (kibble) for domesticated wildcats I'd say. It might have been Mazuri Exotic Feline-Small (25 lb) - 5M54. Zupreem Exotic Feline Food is canned (wet) exotic cat food - canned food for wild cats.

It would seem to me that the underlying cause or at least one of the underlying causes or a compounding factor was the dry cat food. Sawabu liked it. He may have eaten too much of it. Dr. Hodgkins in her book Your Cat (a book about cat health and nutrition) concludes with a firm conviction that dry cat food is the cause of many UTIs. I can confirm that my cat was cured of her cystitis by taking her off dry cat food and feeding wet with added water.

Dry cat food can cause mild dehydration because cats don't compensate by drinking more water. The urine becomes concentrated and the flow slower promoting bacterial growth and stones. As I understand it, that is the theory in outline.

The Royal Canin wet food prescribed worked nicely over time and stopped the stones returning. I am not sure what it contains other than it is wet and therefore contains a lot more water. Wet cat food is more natural for a cat domestic or wild. The Royal Canin wet food prescribed might also contain less of certain minerals etc to reduce the possibility of formation of stones.

Moral: feed wet cat food and specialist raw food to a domesticated serval as an ideal. Obviously Sawabu is just one cat and I am sure some people who keep servals feed dry cat food but it should only be as a part of the overall diet.

There is one other compounding factor that I am aware of that can predispose a cat to UTIs: stress. Without being critical (Dolly is a very caring human companion to Buddy) but Buddy may have been stressed for whatever reason. The obvious one being a lack of space in which to exercise natural behavior.

See also Urinary Tract Infections.

Source for story: Feline Conservation Federation magazine Jan/Feb 2012 Vol 56 Issue 1.

What does digitigrade mean?

The domestic cat, is a digitigrade which means he/she walks on his toes or digits. In the video you can see a digitigrade animal, a serval, walking.  It is quite difficult to see that cats are walking are their toes. Perhaps this is because we are so used to it.



The bones that extend from the paws to the first joint are the feet of the cat. The bones of the feet are the tarsal bones and they are quite long. These connect to the lower leg (the leg below the knee) via the hock. The human equivalent of the hock is the ankle. The hock of the hind legs of the serval in the video are about 9 inches off the ground.

You will see cats rest on their feet when they sit upright and sometimes when eating from a bowl. Dwarf cats are well known for taking up the meerkat position while sitting on their feet. My three legged cat Charlie does this.

The fact that a cat is a digitigrade makes it particularly cruel to declaw a cat as the operation is the removal of the last joint (phalange) of each of the toes. It is a partial amputation of the toe and the cat is meant to walk on his toes. What some do after declawing is walk on their wrists.

Barbary Serval

It seems that the Barbary serval may still exist, but only just. Today in 2011, the serval largely inhabits that area of the African continent that is below the Sahara desert - sub-Sahara Africa.



The Barbary coast is that area of Africa that is on the Mediterranean Sea. A part of Morocco's coastline is on the Mediterranean Sea. It is believed that the serval inhabits Morocco in low numbers. In short it is rare in that country and described by the IUCN Red List as endangered under their classification system. The Barbary lion was made extinct by human activity many years ago.


View Larger Map

On that basis there is a wildcat called the Barbary Serval. This state of play will inevitably change for the worse for the cat and it will in due course be extirpated from the Barbary coast as the human population grows in Morocco, as it surely will. This, though, is my personal opinion, a rather negative and pessimistic assessment you might think. It is based on the general trends in population of all the wildcats.

See a map of the serval's distribution in Africa: Serval range.

There are no figures available as to the likely numbers of servals there are on the Barbary coast - see Serval Population Graph.

The Barbary serval is not a subspecies of the serval according to the IUCN Red List. There is only one species of serval: Leptailurus serval (Schreber, 1776). However, the Wikipedia authors quote the book, Mammal Species of the World in stating that there are 18 subspecies one of which is the serval inhabiting Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. They name this species of serval: Leptailurus serval constantinus. This is almost certainly incorrect.

The science of the classification of the species (taxonomy) is evolving and in the past (19th and early 20th century) there was a tendency to over classify meaning sub-divide the species based on appearance of the animal. Modern DNA testing has rationalised the subspecies and reduced their numbers in finding no real differences. I would not rely on this piece of Wikipedia text.

See more: Serval.

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Serval Population Graph

There is no such thing as a serval population graph because we don't know the world population of the serval. We don't know a lot about the wildcats generally, in fact.

That might surprise people looking for information about serval population but I can assure you that it is true - sorry.



If you are a student looking for a serval population graph for your course work tell your teacher that it doesn't exist.

The best authorities come up blank when discussing serval population:

1. Wild Cats Of The World by Mel and Fiona Sunquist, unquestionably the best book on wildcats in the world does not quote any figures. They say that "servals have declined in numbers". This is pretty much the story for all wildcats. 
2. The IUCN Red List, another excellent resource that should be able to tell us about wild cat populations because that is their main business  - monitoring populations - cannot come up with a serval population. They simply say that the serval "occurs widely" on the African continent below the Sahara desert except for rainforest. That is pretty much it.
3. Then good old Wikipedia simply does not even refer to serval numbers but recites what the Red List says more or less.

Well that is it. The serval is not the only wildcat for which we have no accurate data on population. We don't even know for sure what the population of the tiger is! We have a decent idea (about 3,000+) but estimates in the past have been overly optimistic - unsurprisingly because politicians in India don't want to admit to failure in protecting the tiger from poachers.

See Serval for lots more.



From Serval Population Graph to Home Page

Male Serval Morpheus

This is a picture of male serval Morpheus looking inquisitively at me. The picture is in fact a bit misleading as he was probably figuring out how he was going to spray urine all over me. This he did not long after this photograph was taken.



As mentioned, his name is Morpheus and despite looking rather sweet in this photograph, when I was with him in his enclosure I cannot say that he behaved in a particularly sweet way.

That is not to criticise him. He behaved exactly as I would expect a wildcat to behave towards a human who he is unfamiliar with. He was a bit hostile and wanted to make me smell more like him! And it was pretty well impossible to avoid his spraying particularly as I was fully occupied trying to tease him into position and photograph him at the same time.

Decent compositions and interesting expressions were extremely fleeting. On one occasion I placed by cat tease (a feather attached to the end of a flexible stick) to close to him and he caught me with his front claws. I felt that.

Morpheus lives in an enclosure with his girlfriend or spouse. They are breeding serval cats. There is a market for servals in the United States, which is where Morpheus lives.

Breeders want to buy servals for breeding and individuals want to keep them as domestic cats.

Servals, however, are not great domestic cats in my opinion. They are too large and too wild no matter how well domesticated they might be. They also spray as I have mentioned.

I don't see the point of keeping a serval as a pet. Many people in America will disagree with me, which is fine. Although I was relaxed and got on well with Morpheus in his enclosure, he was a bit intimidating. If that is the normal feeling one gets when close to a serval I don't see how a relationship with one can be ideal.

Hope you like the picture. Here is another:

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