The Sarez Wild Cat Conservation Programme

By C. Esmond Gay – Sarez Bengal’s

My fiancé Sarah and I love and adore the Bengal cat more than life itself! However, we must never forget that without the beautiful but highly endangered wild cats, the Bengal cat that we love so much today would not exist at all! These stunning wild creatures are in desperate need of conservation with some species being very close to imminent extinction!

Therefore, years ago Sarah and I set up a conservation programme that is assisting in rescuing and saving some of these species of beautiful wild felines - we already have many pairs of ‘Ocelots’, ‘Asian Leopard Cats’, ‘Serval’s’ and ‘African Leopards’, all of which are kept in beautiful landscaped enclosures on our estate. However, our aims and ambitions are to do far more than this within the wild cat conservation world.

Our Sarez Wild Cat Conservation Programme is a completely private project as we are not a registered charity – nor will we become one as we do not want to lose control of our work and goals. So we have funded the whole programme from the very substantial income brought in through the sale of our Bengal and Sphynx kittens and we have also used most of our savings to help to fulfil these conservation ambitions.

We have already accomplished a lot for wild cat preservation, but we are determined to do a lot more. We want to help rescue MORE unwanted wild cats that face death unless a new home is found for them. Sadly many big cats like tigers and lions are offered to us with a death sentence on their heads unless someone can spend a fortune housing and keeping them – due to the £60,000 price of building each enclosure, sadly we have only been able to rescue two African Leopards so far… but we’d like to do more. And due to our very well respected reputations as private wild cat keepers, many local councils frequently offer us smaller species of wild cats like Serval’s and ALC’s (but also non felids like raccoons and coati mundi’s!!) after they have been confiscated from homes who are keeping them illegally – again, we have taken in a huge number of these confiscated animals, but still more could be done for others.

And there is other rescue work that needs to be addressed, proven by the number of dangerous wild animals that are simply dumped on our doorstep after illegal keepers see us on TV or in the newspapers or just hear about what we do. Many of these animals are in such neglected condition that they inevitably die and it makes us furious that people could be so cruel. Help needs to be given to those illegally kept animals BEFORE they are dumped as if they were mere garbage!

The above rescue work is important because all of these magnificent animals have a right to live.

The second goal that we want to achieve is to conserve the rarest and the most highly endangered species of wild cats in the world and these various species of wild felines are even closer to extinction - some species that we hope to conserve are so rare and endangered that there are just a few hundred left alive in the world!

Sarah and myself are therefore trying to raise money to import desperately rare species of cats such as the ‘Marbled cats’, the ‘Tiger cats’, the ‘Pampas Cats’ and the ‘Kod Kod cats’ all of which are so desperately threatened that only very few are left in existence. We are also hoping to import the rarest wild cats in the world which are called ‘Andean Mountain cats’ and this species is just a short step away from imminent extinction unless conservationists like Sarah and myself and other wild cat centres help to save them with our captive breeding programmes.

Since the early 1990’s Sarah and I have built and cultivated superb relationships with many of Britain’s top zoos and most world renowned conversationalists. It is rare for any pedigree cat breeder to have achieved the status and close expert contacts that we have developed over time. With some of our projects, we are working in close association with the largest cat charity in the country called the ‘Wild Cat Survival Trust’. We are close friends with Dr Terry Moore the curator of this superb charity as he has supported us from the very outset of our Bengal breeding careers and from when we first obtained our wild cats in the early 1990’s.

Many other zoo’s and wild cat conservation centres have also been a huge support to us and our work, amongst others, Dr Douglas Richardson who is the ex-curator of London Zoo and Peter James owner of the privately run Santago Rare Leopard Project – it is our dream to eventually own some of Peter James astoundingly rare Clouded Leopard cubs and Snow Leopard cubs so that we can help him to conserve these highly endangered species of wild cats. We are also undertaking this work with the help of other private wild cat keepers and organisations who want to be involved in our ambitious project.

And so anyone who does contemplate purchasing a Sarez Bengal from us can rest assured that a major part of the income received will be diverted into the two aforementioned rescue and conservation programs – to help the beautiful wild ancestors of the Bengal’s that so regally grace our homes.

Both Sarah and I thank you for taking the time and trouble to read about our project and we look forward to telling you much more about our work if you are able to contact us.

C. Esmond Gay Lord of Burrough 2002

Addition;

Our Bengal breeding, our wild cat rescue and our wild cat conservation work was truly exhaustive and in 2004 Sarah and I decided to retire. We had achieved all of our goals for the Bengal breed and some of our many goals for our wild cats and we wanted other parties to continue with our work.

Our CITES Appendix 1 wild cats such as our Ocelots and other species that desperately require conservation, were given to some of our many friends within the conservational world (mainly top zoo’s) and these superb organisations now continue with the conservation work that Sarah and I started. We thank them for this and we hope that the beautiful Appendix 1 cats that we so proudly owned will go on to help the survival of the species just as Sarah and I always dreamed they would.

And our CITES Appendix 2 non-endangered species (inc ALC’s and others) were given away to Pauline and Frank Turnock. Our most important desire was for these species was for them to go to a permanent home where they would be loved, adored, looked after by experienced wild cat keepers. We thank Pauline and Frank for providing the best home that we could have wished for and we rest assured that our beloved wild cats (and Bengal’s) will have a good and secure, family orientated home for life.

We will miss our unique wild cats dearly. But we are confident that others will go on to do great things with them in the conservation and breeding world.

I personally remain in very regular contact with Pauline and Frank and intend to do so for decades to come. We are EXTREMELY close and every other day emails or phone calls flow between us. I continue to offer them my full support and advice on all topics of the Bengal and also wild cats. I closely follow Pauline and Franks breeding programs and their many successes and achievements - but without intruding.

Behind the scenes and behind the public eye, I will always be there for them… and the stunning cats that I once so proudly owned. And by being so closely involved with their work, means I never really lose my beloved cats…

C. Esmond Gay
Sarez Bengal’s
Addition made June 2008