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Farmers operating in the Ozark Mountains see a lot of wildlife, but when a farmer near Ava, Mo., spotted a medium- sized cat on his property he knew it wasn’t any animal he should be seeing in Missouri.
The cat was about the height of a bobcat but sported a bright tawny coat with dark spots and stripes, long legs, and a smaller head with huge ears. Over a six-month period, the cat was spotted several times.
Finally, on Jan. 14, the animal was captured using a live trap. After a call to Missouri Game and Fish, Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge in Eureka Springs was contacted for assistance.
Within an hour of receiving the call, the team at Turpentine Creek had their rescue gear loaded and were on the road. The serval was still being held in the live trap and was in a relatively calm state.
The cat was hissy and did charge the fence once, behaving as a serval would be expected to in this situation. She transferred easily from the live trap to the carrier crate the team had brought to transport her for the drive back to Carroll County.
On arrival at Turpentine Creek, the serval was moved to a recovery enclosure at the onsite Jackson Memorial Veterinary Hospital for quarantine. She is eating and drinking normally and seems to like playing in her mulch bed, has been calm and will remain in quarantine for the near future.
“The vet said the serval was in good health, which was awesome to hear,” said Tanya Smith, Turpentine Creek president. “Where she came from is a mystery. The veterinarian could not find a microchip. We don’t know if she was an attempted domestication as a pet and was released, or even part of a backyard breeding scheme and escaped.”
A medium-sized cat, when fully grown, an adult serval stands about two feet tall and weighs between 20 and 40 pounds. They can jump as high as 10 to 12 feet and take birds in flight out of the air with razor-sharp teeth. Servals have been smuggled in from Africa to breed with domestic cats, creating the hybrid Savannah cat.
This latest addition will bring the total number of servals at Turpentine Creek Wildlife Refuge to 10.
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