Wild African Serval cat found after Chester house fire, was it legal?

CHESTER, S.C. ( QUEEN CITY NEWS ) — Neighbors in Chester can breathe a little easier after learning an African Serval Cat isn’t a danger to the public anymore.

On Thursday, city leaders announced the exotic cat ran away after its owner’s house caught fire on Lacy Street. It has since been found.

“Other wild animals do not belong in people’s homes in any capacity because they’re just simply not domestic,” said Louise Orr with the Carolina Tiger Rescue Organization .

She says while it’s legal in North and South Carolina to own some exotic animals — it poses a major danger to the public.

Chester police say it’s reportedly in an animal sanctuary in Florida. Rescue workers say that’s where it should be.

“They have wild instincts that need to be, you know, that they’re going to exhibit regardless of where they are, like hunting or roaming marking territory, you know, displaying aggression, because that’s what they have to do in the wild in order to survive,” Orr said.

South Carolina Department of Natural Resources says “State law doesn’t prohibit the ownership and possession of servals. Counties and municipalities may prohibit the ownership of this species through their own ordinances .”

Chester County has an ordinance that prohibits neighbors from owning dangerous animals .

Orr says people can still have Servals, other wildcats, reptiles, and birds of prey.

“I mean, it really kind of runs the gamut of what people want or decide that they want to own,” she says. “What we’re seeing is that right here in the state and all across the country, we’re in the middle of a small cat crisis because of all this breeding that’s happening and people thinking that it’s cool seeing a Serval on social media and saying, ‘Hey, that looks awesome. I want to try that.’ And so it’s fueling this breeding industry.”

Orr continued, “But then what we’re also seeing is people regretting that decision and then having Serval and saying, ‘I don’t know what to do with this,’ and that’s not fair to that animal at all. We’re going to be focusing on here in the coming years, figuring out ways to solve this small cat crisis and make sure that people are being smart with the decisions that they’re making as far as animals that they bring into their home.”

Orr encouraged people to adopt domestic cats from shelters that need homes rather than breed exotic animals.

In North and South Carolina, the rules are the same: it’s legal to own an exotic cat like a serval but it’s illegal to own a native species, so you wouldn’t be allowed to own something like a squirrel or a bobcat, but you could have something like a serval.

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The Carolina Tiger Rescue is a wild cat sanctuary in Pittsboro, North Carolina. Their mission is to save and protect wild cats both in captivity and in the wild.

The organization offers homes to several different species. They have tigers, lions, cougars, and even bobcats and more. The vast majority of those animals have come from some sort of circumstance, whether they’re being abused or being housed in bad situations.

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