Three young adult Savannah cats were holding their own version of a steeplechase around a far south suburban great room–sailing one after another over the back of a sofa, galloping with gusto around the kitchen island and hanging like Air Jordan in hopes of snaring a cat toy bouncing on the end of a stick.
The three–Naomi, Nairobi and 9-month-old Kenya, the oldest and the ring leader–represent an extraordinary new breed of cat, a hybrid cross between the wild African Serval and the domestic cat.
They have bold, stunning coats–a cross between leopard and tiger markings, deep black rosettes or spots on sandy backgrounds, accented with a few narrow bars and stripes.
Moving or at rest, each is like living artwork–their bodies elongated like a Giacometti sculpture, their slender torsos set on pedestal-like legs, their rounded ears exaggeratedly large with white “eyes” on the back of each, said to be the markers by which wild kittens follow their mothers through the brush.
Though elegant at just under a year old, they are also imposing–Kenya is already 20 pounds and is expected to reach 25 to 30 pounds, double the size of the most indolent house cat.
But most of all, it’s their personalities–the high energy and hyper-alertness–that makes for their electrifying presence. They allow strangers to pet them, though they politely decline being held.
Breeders Dale and Colleen Hummel allow the adults the run of their Braidwood house and to share their bed with them at night. The babies from two separate litters, however, are kept in a spare bedroom–otherwise it would be like having “a houseful of monkeys,” says Colleen Hummel, who has been breeding the Savannahs for four years.
Savannahs are amazingly intelligent, she adds. They love to play in water. And they talk with unusual voices–chirps and squawks–rather than the usual meow.
The kittens are intensely curious, playful and fearless. They allow petting, but would rather sniff the soles of your shoes for messages from the outside. The visitor is a goner at the sight of a dark chocolate-dappled golden female kitten with a sassy manner and tiny cheetah face named Zaire. But as one of the best F1 or first generation (50% Serval) kittens the Hummels have produced, Zaire is not for sale. The three male kittens, all black-dappled beige, are $4,000 each. Males probably will be sterile until the fourth generation, two more years of breeding effort, Dale Hummel says.
The Hummels’ “Select Exotics” is one of only three successful Savannah breeding operations in the world. “There are only about 30 Savannahs in the world and we’ve got about 12 of them,” says Colleen Hummel. The Hummels became interested in Bengals, a cross between the Asian leopard and the domestic cat–usually an Ocicat or an Egyptian Mau–when they first appeared 10 years ago, and still breed them. They also breed Servals, a wild feline native to the African savannah or grasslands.
To breed the Savannah, the Hummels cross Bengal or Oriental short-hair females with their 40-pound male Serval, Keystone.
Dale Hummel, who has a master’s degree in animal science from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and teaches animal nutrition and genetics at Joliet Junior College, became interested in Servals after a woman who could no longer care for hers gave him one. He says one “had to be pretty understanding to have it as a pet,” since the Serval brought his raw chicken meals to bed with him.
Buyers beware
The rarity of the Savannah breed, he adds, is due to several genetic complications in breeding a large wild cat to a smaller domestic one. For one, the gestation period for the Serval is 72 days, while it is just over 60 in the domestic cat.
There are already counterfeits–either cats with no wild ancestry or full-blooded Servals–and the Hummels suggest DNA testing of kittens, which matches up their bar codes with that of the parents, to prospective buyers. The Hummels also have founded the International Savannah Cat Society, a registry. Their Web site, www.cbcast.com/cats/, has brought offers from England and Japan for their cats. A Savannah was on display earlier this year at the Westchester Feline Club cat show in New York, and appeared on ABC-TV’s”Good Morning America,” which sparked more interest.
The Hummels justify the genetic manipulation necessary to breed the Savannah with this argument: “Often the closest the general public can get to the untouchable beauty of wild and exotic felines is standing in front of the bars on a cage at the local zoo. A few are able to obtain wild cats on a whimsical notion, only to abandon the defenseless feline after the novelty wears off. The idea and creation of the Savannah breed is based on both of these points.”
Savannahs, Dale Hummel says, allow people to own a cat with an exotic size and color pattern combined with the personality and care needs of a domestic.
The Hummels say Savannahs require the same nutrition, care and vaccinations as domestic cats and can be trusted with small children and other pets.
Susie Brennan, 21, of Munster, Ind., purchased a male Savannah last Christmas from the Hummels, and says she was motivated by “the fact that it was a half-wild cat you could have in your house without permits and the hassle. It had that wild cat look.”
Leo is “a little crazier than a domestic cat. He’s either hyperactive or he’s sleeping,” she says. But, Brennan adds, he has “a lot better personality than my Bengal, who has personality problems which goes back to the Asian leopard personality.”
There are those who hiss at the idea of the wild/domestic crosses as pets. Though Myrna Milani, veterinarian, cat behaviorist and author of “CatSmart, The Ultimate Guide to Understanding, Caring for, and Living with Your Cat” (Contemporary Books, $19.95), admits “these cats are seductively gorgeous,” crossing wild with domestic still raises a lot of moral issues in her mind.
“It dilutes the gene pool of the small wild cats already in dire straits,” she says. Second, she adds, the strongest drive in the domestic animal is to establish territory and it’s even stronger in wild animals. The domestic/wildcat crosses such as the Bengal and Savannah “might not feel quite as inhibited when it comes to marking their territory with urine,” i.e., not using the litter box.
Andy Lightfoot, who has worked with Servals as trainer at the Columbus Zoo in Columbus, Ohio, says the wild cats are fine until they reach sexual maturity. Then they get sexually aggressive and hard to handle. “If you keep the environment constant, they are fine, but take them to a veterinarian or a friend’s house, and there are problems. I wouldn’t warrant hybridizing it,” he says, though he adds, “it might be more subdued with neutering or spaying.” Lightfoot says he is totally against the Bengal, and if somebody wants a different kind of cat, he recommends “the Maine coon which looks like a lynx, or the Ocicat, if they want spots.”
Dr. Ray Favero, a reproductive physiologist in St. Joseph, Ill., takes a more neutral stand. “The few (Savannahs) that are out there have been really good-natured,” he says. “They’ve been hand-reared,” which he believes is very important. “If they have human interaction at a critical time in their life, then they bond well.”
Barn cats, he points out, “if not handled when they are young, become feral and you can’t catch them to make pets out of them even if they are domestic cats.”
Favero, who is familiar with the Savannahs, says he hasn’t noticed any real problems with them, “but they are going to be a bit of a commitment. And given everything involved, those who get one should be really serious about it.”
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For information or to purchase Savannahs, call Dale or Colleen Hummel at 815-458-0779 or send e-mail to hummel@cbcast.com. Photographs and information also can be found on their Web site at www.cbcast.com/cats/.
