Firefighters responding to a small house fire in Marrero, Louisiana, discovered an African serval illegally enclosed in the backyard. An animal welfare agency is now seeking to place the wildcat in an appropriate environment, according to officials.
On Tuesday, firefighters investigating a minor fire at a home in the suburban New Orleans community of Marrero spotted the serval behind the residence in a chain-linked enclosure resembling a cramped baseball batting cage. A spokesperson for Jefferson Protection and Animal Welfare Services (JPaws) said its director, Michelle Brignac, and humane department supervisor, Victoria Clark, joined firefighters at the scene after being summoned.
Local laws require an exotic animal permit to legally keep a serval as a pet, and the owner of the home did not have such a document, JPaws spokesperson John McCusker told the Guardian. Brignac and Clark “subdued the hissing serval and wrangled it” into a transport carrier from its 9ft-by-9ft cage that McCusker likened to “a dog kennel.” The serval was then brought to the JPaws facility in Harvey.
JPaws gave the serval an entire room to itself while seeking an appropriate refuge. The wildcat was born in captivity but its natural habitat is African grasslands. Servals are known for their ability to leap as high as about 7ft. JPaws said it would explore having the serval held temporarily at New Orleans’ Audubon zoo, but a zoo spokesperson said the institution did not plan to take the serval in.
Servals share similarities with domesticated cats, making them popular as pets, but they are not easily sustained. According to JPaws, servals in captivity lack the physical space and stimulation needed for normal behaviors, endure chronic stress, mark their territory, become aggressive as they mature, cannot be fully house-trained, and destroy furniture. Experts say they require a diet and specialized care beyond what house cats need.
The Marrero serval is the latest indicator of the wildcats’ growing popularity, driven in part by social media content creators. Cases involving servals have generated headlines in North America. In 2023, an African serval named Amiry was captured in Ohio and later tested positive for cocaine. In late 2025, a serval that escaped a Pennsylvania wildlife center was fatally struck by a motorist. In Vancouver, authorities returned a serval to its owners after it escaped, though British Columbia had just banned keeping exotic cats as pets.
Source: www.theguardian.com