Serval
The longest legs of any cat relative to its body, and ears that find rodents in long grass. It hunts by leaping, and it clears several feet straight up.
Overview
The serval has the longest legs and the largest ears in the cat family relative to its body, and both are hunting equipment. It locates rodents by ear in grass it cannot see through, then leaps, clearing up to 1.5 metres going after birds, and pounces across one to four metres.
It is also very good at it. Servals succeed in about 48 percent of hunts, which is high among cats, and small mammals make up 93.5 percent of what they catch. Adults weigh 9 to 18 kilos, hold territories of 11 or more square kilometres in the wild, and live an average of 22 years in captivity, so this is a two decade animal with a wild cat's requirements intact.
Temperament
A serval is a wild cat and stays one. It can be raised around people and remain unpredictable with strangers, and it does not scale down its hunting behaviour to fit a living room.
They are active around dawn and late afternoon, they mark with urine, and the marking is heavy and does not stop with neutering. Most of the servals that end up in sanctuaries get there for exactly these reasons rather than for anything dramatic.
Care and grooming
Whole prey, and the calcium and taurine that come with it. A serval fed on muscle meat develops metabolic bone disease, and that is a common and avoidable outcome.
Veterinary care is a real problem to solve in advance. Few small animal vets will take a serval, sedation is usually needed for anything routine, and vaccination protocols are not settled for the species the way they are for a domestic cat.
Living and exercise
Large, secure and outdoors, with height. An animal that jumps 1.5 metres straight up clears most garden fencing without effort, so enclosures need a roof or a proper overhang.
Space is the honest issue. A wild serval works over kilometres, and even a generous enclosure is a fraction of that, so the difference has to be made up with prey based feeding and structure to hunt through. Ownership is regulated and the rules differ by state, and several states do not allow it.
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