AN AFRICAN wild cat illegally kept as a domestic pet has been rescued from an Alicante area home.
The five-year-old female serval called Tila became too much of a handful for the family and they contacted the AAP Primadomus rescue centre in Villena.
The household stated: “On social media, you only see the positive and positive aspects of having a serval as a pet, but the reality is that as they grow, it becomes very difficult to keep them at home, especially with small children or if you have visitors as the animal gets nervous.”
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“If we had known beforehand about the difficulties involved in caring for them, we certainly wouldn’t have gotten one,” they added.
Tila was acquired four years ago and the Guardia Civil removed her to safety at the Villena centre.
Servals are not pets as they need large spaces and are natural predators.
They retain their natural instincts even though they may have been born in captivity, which appears to be the case with Tila.
Servals originate from Sub-Saharan African countries and live mainly in grasslands and savannahs.
They are carnivorous and territorial, and their body adapts to move in an agile way to hunt, being able to jump up to three metres high to capture birds in flight.
An AAP Primadomus spokesperson said they are hearing about more such cases driven by the rise of keeping exotic pets.
Servals are currently among the five animals with the highest number of rescue requests in Spain and across Europe.
Olga Martin from the Coalition for the Positive group commented: “They cannot adapt to life in captivity, much less in a domestic environment, where they suffer greatly.”
“The distress caused can lead to more aggressive behaviour than normal, and in many cases resulting in biting, scratching, destroying objects, and attacking other animals or people.”
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