Serval Scratches Me

This male serval scratched me. I was my fault. This is a bit of fun (it makes me laugh now) but at the time it hurt a bit and I wasn’t immediately sure how serious the injury was. The video quality is poor but it does highlight the need to take care when playing with a serval or any wild cat even the small ones are stronger than the domestic cat.

This serval is Morpheus and he is a very large cat by domestic cat standards. He is the size of a large dog. He had his claws (nobody had declawed him) and his teeth and all his weapons were intact.

Morpheus was an intimidating cat but I really wanted to get close and see what the serval is like. He was semi-tame living in a large enclosure at A1 Savannahs.

I was using a domestic cat “tease” – a feather on a stick to play with him and he got a bit excited and scratched my hand. He did is forcefully. I forget how I dealt with it; probably antiseptic and a bandage. It healed OK. Perhaps a scratch from a serval is less dangerous than a scratch from a domestic cat. There might be less bacteria on the claws. I don’t know though.

I felt sorry for Morpheus. He was in an enclosure that was too small despite being quite a large enclosure by breeder standards and he suffered from behaviorial problems. He paced back and forth. I hate seeing that sort of thing. His breeding partner was Penelope. His offspring were sold to breeders of Savannah cats I suppose or people selling servals as pets.

See a female serval hiss – impressive.

11 thoughts on “Serval Scratches Me”

  1. LOL…ambulance…help! 😉 No, it was not that bad. I more or less ignored it but it did hurt initially and I could see it getting out of hand. It is a bit of video material I had archived but seeing it again I quite like it. The serval does have the capacity to hurt a person. I don’t think I even told the Stuckis (the owners of A1 Savannahs a the time) about it.

    For your interest, I had to sign a waiver at A1 Savannahs before entering the enclosures so if I got hurt I could not sue anyone. Standard practice I guess.

  2. LOL!
    OMG! Scratched!
    Did you visit an emergency room?
    Was there talk of an amputation?
    Did you have to have a series of rabies vaccines?
    Are you suing anybody?
    That is a sort of the hysteria that wouldn’t surprise me here.

  3. Very sad video to watch, seeing the cage, seeing the cat panting, seeing the poor thing getting a bit of attention, (hearing Michael get scratched LOL)all so unnecessary, these cats shouldn’t be bred in captivity there are plenty of domestic cats desperate for homes without hybrid cats being bred for the sake of one upmanship, wherever this place is or was it is merely a cat production factory and should be closed down.

  4. You didn’t cage them Michael, so you couldn’t give them their well deserved freedom either.
    But you bring them to our notice by your photos.
    Education is what it’s all about, showing people the truth, making them think about things that would never enter their minds otherwise.
    We have to face some sad and horrible knowledge if we are ever going to be able to help those animals and this is what PoC is good at.
    Look at the cats claws we’ve saved by educating in every way possible about the cruelty of declawing!

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