Exotic Cat as "Pet"
Discussion of various exotic cats, and do they make a good "Pet" ???
From: Marjorie Bitt From my experience with servals, at about 1 to 1 1/2 years old they become unfriendly to everyone they have not bonded with and nothing can change this. I raised one from the time he was 6 weeks old and even though as many as 6 other people handled him on a regular basis he did a 180 and to this day will not let anyone but me handle him and no amout of coaxing or bribing will get him to come around. I have worked with many,many species of cat and not found this to be true in any but the serval. Marjorie
From: Sara or Mike Bratcher Just thought I would throw my two cents worth in about all of the above. First, I agree with what has been said that it takes time for cats to adjust to new surroundings and keepers or handlers. We've had cats that we thought we might have to send back because it was taking a long time to settle in. In particular, we have an adult male Bengal tiger who came to us from an old zoo where his indoor and outdoor enclosures were concrete. At our zoo, the exhibits are large and grassy, with the only concrete areas being the big cats' night buildings. This cat absolutely freaked the first time outside coming in contact with dirt, grass, running water, trees - the works. It really took him a long time to settle down. Another interesting fact is that he has bonded with me and also accepts other women keepers who might visit his area - but he hates men. We were told he was hand-raised by women and his former keepers were women, so maybe that's the reason. However, we have two jags that were raised and kept at their zoo by women, and they hate everyone. My boss was just sure they would settle down and bond with me, but no luck. We may have to send them back to their former zoo, because I don't think they'll be good exhibit animals.
To expand a little about hand-raising, I don't want to give the impression that all hand-raised panthera cubs are unfriendly. Part of my job at the zoo is to hand-raise all of our cats - big and small. We do this routinely because hand-raised cats are generally better natured. We have found that mother-raised cats are usually afraid of the public, will pace a lot and will seem to be more difficult for the keepers to manage. In contrast, the hand-raised cubs will enjoy human contact, will be more comfortable in their exhibit, and generally be easier to handle. This is not always true, but I would say in most cases it is.
On to interaction, in our zoo we have a limited amount of interaction with our cats. The smaller hand-raised cats such as our caracals, Siberian lynx and clouded leopards we do go in with and have lots of hands-on attention - with caution. We always have to remember that even the sweetest clouded leopard has claws that can leave you looking like hamburger, so you are always careful. It's different with our big cats, whether they are hand-raised or not. We continue to go in with hand-raised tigers, cougars, snow leopards and leopards - until they reach a certain size. These cats are tremendously strong even at an early age and could seriously hurt or kill you just playing with you. Once they reach 50-75 pounds, we only interact through the fence. This interaction may be touching through the fence, or may just be talking to them and chuffling at them. Each animal is different and must be evaluated as to safe interaction. Even a friendly tiger could rip a hand off if you tried to reach in and pat it.
Oh, well. So much for my opinion. I want to say I'm really enjoying this list, but I don't get much housework done when I come home, because I want to get on-line. :-) Sara
There is an excellent magazine on enrichment for all animals, with articles on cats at times. Write to Shape of Enrichment, 1650 Minden Drive, San Diego, CA 92111-7124. Fax 619 279 4208.
> a) what Marine World/Africa USA do in terms of interacting with their animals/exotics
All I know about are the tigers. And a bit about the elephants. They are an AZA facility, but handle all the cats. They hand raise all cubs. They have a cub play area that they spend a lot of time with a handler and their siblings. Bounding around on the grass, playing with toys, learning acceptable behavior with their humans. They are taken for leash walks through the park daily. The park has two tiger sections. Tiger Island is a viewing area that contains 3-5 cats on display at a time. Natural setting with a pool, etc, like any exhibit, except that the handlers are in there with them. Lounging and playing to the delight of the public, and they answer questions about the cats. I have a problem with this exhibit because it is misleading to the general public. Inevitably, every time I've lurked in the crowd, I hear people say "Ahhhhhh, I want one". The handlers try to stress that this is only accomplished through heavy involvement on a daily basis throughout the cat's life. They get paid to do it. Most private owners cannot afford to spend 8-10 hours a day, 7 days a week, with their cat, and will not get the same results. The other tiger area at MW is the tiger act. It's an arena act with up to nine cats performing. These cats are highly trained and raised the same way. They truely enjoy what they do and when they no longer enjoy it they are retired by the owner, Ron Whitfield. They are taken to his private compound (usually in their early to mid teens) to live out their lives.
The elephants are walked and handled daily also. They are given tasks such as log stacking, etc., and benefit greatly for the challenges. This is mostly done in front of the public for their enjoyment also.
Subject: Re: bobcat - Okay, here's some info about my experience with bobcats (please remember I am pulling these up from the seventies, so some may be sketchy, and I apologize in advance for being long-winded. I'm just telling it as I think of it.):
My first bobcat was an infant with a broken leg. My veterinarian, Dr. Jack Tickle, did surgery on the leg and cast it. I happened to have a nursing cat at home at the time. It seemed more convenient to let the cat nurse the kitten than have to do it myself, so I did. This is an excellent idea if one plans to return the bobcat to the wild; not so if planning to keep it as a pet. Mama Cat adored him, even though he was half her size and probably weighed as much as all three of her kittens put together. He did well, but since he was nursed and tended by a cat, he was not tame. This was in spite of the fact that the nursing mother and her kittens were inside our home, and totally in love with humans, who were around contantly.
As soon as he was old enough to begin eating solid foods, I started having trouble with the bobkitten wanting to go outside at every opportunity. We removed his cast and the leg healed with not problems. But he never socialized with people. He was my first discovery that bobcats are astounding escape artists. I have known a number of people who have tried to keep one in their house as a housecat, and my experience and theirs is that they just don't like being indoors (but then my housecats don't, either) and they will do anything to escape. This youngster escaped for the last time when he was only a few months old--and this time we were unable to find him. We never knew for sure if he was able to make it on his own, but since field mice and small rodents, such as rabbit litters, were plentiful and there were few predators, we hoped he was capable of it. If determination was all it took, this little character had it made.
Two others, littermates named Sidney and Sheldon, were hand-raised by my family and me. We got them at a few days old, and nursed them on KMR. With all my exotic cats, I began adding Science feline diet, thoroughly mixed and liquefied, at about 2-3 weeks of age, increasing the mix over a period of a few weeks until they were old enough to eat on their own. I supplemented, when old enough, with chicken and chicken necks. Sidney and Sheldon went on vacation with us, and made great little travelers. I recall slipping them into a motel in a carrier and putting them to bed. In the morning, I leaned over my bed, calling, "Here, Babies!" They came skittering from across the room, barely old enough to skitter. I was totally mommy to them. They were very people-oriented, and made surprisingly good housecats. They did love to sit on the top shelf of the divider between the den and livingroom, and leap onto unsuspecting guests as they entered the front door. I had no plans to alter the fangs or declaw these two. However, Sidney had an idiosyncracy.
Allow me to explain that exotic cats sometime have what we came to describe as a "reversion temperament." It was often believed that if an exotic cat ever "tasted blood" he would "turn wild and become a killer." Nothing could be further from the truth. It depended much on the species, and then on the individual within the species. What a "reversion temperament" was, to us, was a feline who would revert under certain circumstances. When the circumstances were changed, however, he would return to his normal, human-loving self. This differed very much between a jaguar we had with a reversion temperament, and Sidney's reversion temperament. The jaguar would revert over anything that came into his possession. Once he considered it his, he was a wild animal and would attack anyone who came within the circle he considered his private territory (I would guess this to be a radius of about 6-10 feet, although I could get closer, but didn't like having to). When the offending article was removed or he eventually tired of it, he would remain "wild" for a few minutes. After fifteen minutes or so, he would settle back down to his extremely loveable self.
Sidney, the bobcat, had a reversion temperament. He reverted, however, over only one thing...fur. Strangely, it wasn't just REAL fur. I kept a fake fur hat in one of my drawers (don't know why---I never wore the thing) and he knew which drawer it was in. Whenever he saw me open that drawer, he would leap in, grab the hat, and run. We would have to trap him in a blanket, remove the cap and, IMMEDIATELY, he would begin purring and licking and rubbing me. He not only didn't take a few minutes to calm down, he didn't even take a few SECONDS. It was like turning a switch off and on. He grabbed the cap and BOOM, he was a wild animal. Remove the cap and, like turning a switch, he was a pussycat.
One day, I opened the drawer and Sidney came flying over my shoulder, into the drawer, grabbed the hat, and ran. I went after him instantly, because we happened to be having a party that night and had a houseful of people. I raced after him. He went straight to the children's room and I made it to the doorway just in time to him cornered by a child about three years old. Before I had time to do anything, Sidney leaped over the child and ran past me. I caught him, got the hat, and everything was fine. But I couldn't get the thought out of my mind of what it would have been like if he had gone for the child instead of leaping over the child. Obviously, Sidney wasn't that kind of cat, but I wasn't taking any more such chances. I had the cats in my home, around my children and my friends. I had them declawed, neutered, and their fangs altered to be even with their other teeth. (Pulpotomies by my dentist and vet, under general anesthesia.)
These were marvelous cats, and weren't too bad about getting outside, but they did love being outside. For some reason, both cages were being used at that time--I can't remember who we had when, and time seems to run together. Anyway, I knew the dangers of allowing a cat to be in the yard on a leash of any kind. I knew of at least two who had choked to death. However, I thought I had the problem taken care of by allowing them to be on a long leash attached to a large concrete brick for awhile, far enough away from trees so they could not jump on any limbs, but close enough to have shade. I went to work and told the kids to bring them in after awhile. I screwed up. The cats pulled the brick until they could no longer get into the shade. In the Texas sun, Sheldon became too hot. My daughter found him, and young as she was, sensed the problem and immediately began spraying him with water. The housekeeper stopped her. They called me and brought him immediately in to the animal hospital where I worked. As it turned out, Sheldon's life may have been saved if the housekeeper hadn't stopped my daughter from spraying water on him. He was, indeed, suffering heat stroke.
When I look back on this now, it was unforgiveably stupid, but it had worked fine a number of times. Sheldon lived through the night, but died the next morning. His brother Sidney went on to become a beautiful, full grown cat. I could no longer force him to stay inside. Emotionally, I just couldn't handle it. We lived well into the country. He came and went as he pleased, staying longer each time, looking healthy and sleek when he returned. Eventually he stopped returning. I feel that he made it okay as a wild animal, even without his claws, since he came and went for quite a long time before he stopped returning. Each time became longer, however, and the last time we saw him was weeks after the time before. He appeared happy and healthy. The next morning he was gone again.
Virgil was brought to us by a lady who wanted to get the cat away from her husband and his drunken friends, who taunted the cat all the time. When I got him, he was very shy and frightened of people. I put him in the large cage with my young cougar. They became best of buds, and slept, ate and played together. As the cougar grew, the bobcat continued to sleep curled up in his arms. We did personal appearances with them both, and many, many people across the United States had their portraits made with these two loveable clowns, many at Aquarena Springs in San Marcos, Texas.
Again, I made a stupid error one afternoon. We had a long, heavyweight wire strung between two large tree trunks, giving the cats room to run full out for about 100 feet. This was not where they lived. They had a large cage with 26' of running space. We felt they should be able to get extra exercise, but that it wasn't safe to turn them totally loose. Something could happen to them---especially the cougar. We had already had an animal shot (a javelina) because he wandered too close to a country neighbor's yard, and the city man shot him just because he didn't know what he was. He was later very apologetic when he learned the truth--but much too late. He'd buried him in his yard.
Back to the running wire. We had watched the cats for long times at a time. We had trimmed the tree trunks of every limb and anything the cats could conceivably hang themselves on. They had nothing but 100 feet of full-out running space, and loved being out in the rocks and grass and natural area. There were enough very high overhanging limbs for plenty of shade, but no limbs within their reach. We were sure this running cable was safe. They had spent many fun-filled hours on it.
This time, one of the spider monkeys alerted me, and when I went out to check on them, I found that, while running and chasing each other, Virgil had apparently run up the tree trunk to run down again, with his usual exuberance, and the lead had hung on a TINY vestige of a limb that was, I swear, a button not more than a quarter-of-an-inch away from the trunk. How it held him, we could never figure out, but by the time I got out there, he was not breathing. I could not revive him. I cried myself to sleep many, many nights and blamed myself. When I look back now, I wonder why on earth I didn't put the cougar on the lead, because there was nothing his heavy body could have hung on, and let the bobcat run free. The bobcat would not have gone very far away from his buddy. Stupid, stupid woman. I had done it again!
At least I knew that the bobcat had had a happy life for the length of it instead of the inhumane one he'd had previously...but it wasn't nearly as long as it should have been. And I took the cougar's best friend from him.
Whatever you do, don't EVER tie a cat to anything, in any way. It is not safe, I don't care HOW you do it. I know of one leopard that died that way, another cougar, and two others that were cut down in time. I don't care how safe you think the space is, it isn't. Count on it.
I had two other bobcats. One was as much like a domestic cat as any I'd ever seen. I did not alter her in any way. And I could not bear to treat her any differently from my domestic cats--allowing her to come and go as she pleased. She, also, eventually chose to live in her natural domain. First it was overnight, then two or three nights. The times away became longer and longer, as will happen with a deer or raccoon or squirrel, until she finally stayed away. I feel she, too, probably had as free and comfortable a life as any bobcat could have. Whatever her life became, it was natural and free.
We always kept dog food, cat food and grains in feeders about our property, and automatic waterers, so that any animal could come in for feeding at any time. That way, if the ones we had bottle-raised found it difficult to forage or capture prey, they could always come in to feed. The feeders were far enough from our house for them to feel comfortable. Our dogs were all raised with the animals, so would allow them to come and go as they pleased. We raised numbers of baby deer, raccoons, squirrels, 'possums, rabbits and more in this manner.
During this time, I did obtain a couple of litters of bobkittens for sale to others who I felt would provide them with good homes. One kitten never did well, no matter what we did, and after her death, a necropsy showed that she was not digesting the formula. We were using KMR straight from the can, which had always worked before. After that, I always weakened a new formula for a short time until I knew how a baby was going to tolerate it.
The last baby bobcat was one I came across after my divorce, after having to give up my land, and when I was attempting a partnership in an exotic animal exhibit with a woman who had once bought two cougars from me. Things did not work out well for us due to terrifically clashing personalities. This particular little bobcat came to me when I had a little Yorkie-crossbreed female dog (another interesting story). This natural "mommy" began lactating when I brought the bobkitten to her, and I allowed her to nurse the baby, supplementing her milk with KMR out of fear that the dog milk would not be sufficiently balanced. However, during a personal appearance, my "friend" and "partner" stepped on the baby's foot and the baby bit her ankle. Two or three days later, my partner's daughter and I had to leave with a baby lion for another appearance, and while we were gone, this "partner" managed to get her vet to agree (against his better judgement) to behead this beautiful baby and send it in for a rabies test. Needless to say, there was no rabies. That ended it for this "partnership" with a woman who supposedly LOVED animals and I ended up losing a lot, because it left me with no place for mine.
One of the things everyone should be extremely careful about is not to get involved with any exotic animals they are not financially prepared for as well as emotionally and physically. Divorces and bankruptcy have interrupted the well-being of more exotic animals than almost anything else. I read another book of a couple who got into it big-time years before I did, and the eventual end, as their charges grew and increased, was devastating for all involved. She watched her beautiful animals being taken away against her will, against their will, as her land and her charges were confiscated.
This time round, I am paying cash for my land, cash for the improvements, and cash as we go for the buildings and cages, so no one can take anything from me no matter what. There will be money to care for the animals, NO MATTER WHAT. When I do rescue work, it will be for life, and when I have all I can care for, I WILL ACCEPT NO MORE, as hard as it is to do it.