Reports on Thursday morning of several sightings of what looked like a cheetah sent the reception into a frenzy of contacting the Parks Board to come and catch the cat. Fears were mostly for the younger children, the dogs, the locals with their travelling cattle grazing nearby and Matthias (with a recently sprained ankle he can't run fast...)
The Conservancy people duly arrived and on inspection of the animal's tracks it was decided that we weren't dealing with a cheetah or leopard but merely a serval. Now, servals don't seem to exist anywhere else, but from my wildlife guide it seems they look an awful lot like a cheetah, but with big ears. Perhaps an outcast from the supreme big cats breed, they never seemed to feature on 'Big Cat Week' on the BBC.
Apparently there are a couple of them that live in this area. The book doesn't say they are dangerous, but then the book wouldn't say that Nata, the teeny black cat who has made it his mission in life to get into my house, is 'dangerous' either, but that doesn't mean the claws and teeth don't hurt when he decides to bite me! Small, but sleek and sharp.
I haven't seen this creature yet, would be kind of cool to spot it, but perhaps from the safety of my car instead of face to face in the bush!
Oh and it certainly made for interesting conversation during the audit - which went very well indeed! Now I'm slightly less busy, but only slightly...
