World Serval Day: March 18

World Serval day, launched in 2023, is arriving soon and this year heralds an era of new energy from national stakeholders to tackle the problem of hybrid cats in the UK. The Wildheart Trust has been campaigning and raising awareness for serval welfare:

Hybrid cats are of course the cross between an exotic wild cat and a domestic one to produce new designer breeds, such as a Savannah cat (Serval cross) that then sell for thousands of pounds in a perfectly legal, yet wholly unregulated online market.

Research has demonstrated that Savannah cats are a significantly greater threat to native species than normal domestic cats due to the Servals love of water and their increased predatory abilities.  This leads to new habitats being predated – such as wetland ecosystems – which currently escape the worst of domestic cat predation, and larger prey being taken, both of which expand the list of native species currently under pressure from cats.  Further research has shown they have an increased propensity to spray-mark around peoples homes as they look to establish their territories, a trait which leads to many cases of abandonment in the UK. In addition, a Savannah maintains the heightened aggression of its wild forebears, leading to legal fall out, euthanasia cases and further pressure on rescue centres to take “problem” cats.   

Whilst Servals and F1 generation Savannahs require a DWA to hold in the UK, none of these cats are given the freedoms expected for a captive wild animal, often being kept in small pens with little enrichment and a diet more suited to a domestic moggy than a wild animal. 

The hybrid cat trade has seen an explosion in the UK and Europe over the last few years, fuelled by social media and sold unregulated online in peoples DM’s, the authorities are way behind the curve in trying to control or regulate this trend. The accompanying physical and behavioural issues are all too evident in the many reports from distressed owners that contact rescue centres and BIAZA zoos looking for help.

World Serval Day provides a focal point to raise awareness of the issues with hybrid cats to the public and recommend how they can behave responsibly to ensure that they do not promote this trade in anyway.  In its first year many BIAZA collections and other organisations around the world took part to share social posts about Servals or hybrid cats to their collective audience of 1.7 million.  It was a huge success and attracted the attention of International Cat Care and DEFRA, both of whom have started work streams in 2024 looking at the hybrid cat trade and its effect on the animals involved – from Servals to lower filial generations. In support, the Carnivore Sub Group are producing Serval husbandry guidance to evidence best practice which will help showcase how every breeder of a hybrid cat in the UK is failing to meet any form of acceptable welfare standards.

If you would like to get involved then you can find out more at https://wildheartanimalsanctuary.org/world-serval-day/  or email [email protected] for a social media park and take part next Monday.