An Ironic Step Towards Feline Conservation

By C. Esmond Gay – Sarez Bengal’s - 1998

As a breeder of domestic pedigree cats, I considered it appropriate to put into words just how this hobby has turned a full circle – now the immediate goals of my fiancé Sarah and I are to breed the wild ancestors of our beautiful household pets!

Cats of all shapes and sizes have always been my greatest love ever since my childhood, but I never dreamt that my future would allow me to work amongst so many of them. Even after receiving a good education, my life was never truly happy, due to the fact that my job as a buyer within a large computer company left me feeling ‘empty’ and ‘useless’ inside, and this was because of my yearning passion for animals. When my rescued animals started to dominate my life, it was obvious to me that it was necessary to give up this employment in order to concentrate on the welfare of my animals, and an offshoot of this led to Sarah and I becoming major breeders of Bengal cats.

As most of you know, the Bengal is a hybrid of the Asian Leopard Cat and has been created and bred in order to try and stop the senseless slaughter of wild cats that dominates all areas of the globe. The Asian Leopard Cat, together with other wild felines, was being ruthlessly hunted for their beautiful pelts and this caused a lady called Jean Mill in America, and a geneticist called Dr Centerwall to try to create a domestic household cat that had the breathtaking beauty of a miniature Leopard! Their hope was that the general public would be so outraged at the thought of someone wearing a fur coat which looked exactly like their own household pets, that the shops that sold these garments would go out of business due to there being no demand for these products!! Only time will tell as to whether or not they have succeeded worldwide, but in the UK it is quite obvious that fur coat wearers have been demonised and such practises really are deemed “socially unacceptable”.

As well as this, these two people did create a stunning and docile cat that still retains not only the beauty of the Asian Leopard Cat, but also some of the unique characteristics that were bestowed upon the wild Leopard Cats. The Bengal ‘prowls’ rather than walks, it ‘cries’ rather than meows, it has a ‘pelt’ rather than fur which glitters like gold dust in the sun and its adoration for water is as strong as it is in their wild ancestors!! Our Bengal’s willingly drink from running taps rather than from their water bowls, they will jump into the bath or shower with Sarah and I and they ALWAYS turn their drinking bowls over during the frantic games of ‘fishing’ that they frequently enjoy playing! Several of our domestic Bengal’s have learnt how to turn the taps on and, having done that, they will quite happily proceed to go to ‘number ones’ in the sink just like their wild ancestors from four generations ago would do in running streams within their natural habitat!!

This breed of cat is completely unique when compared to other breeds of domestic cats because the Bengal has retained their docile personality as well as the wild characteristics of its recent wild ancestor. Sarah and I fell in love with not only the amazing beauty that these cats possess, but also their wild characteristics and have very slowly but surely gained more of an interest and respect for the ancestors of our ‘pet cats’.

Space was wasn’t a problem at our 2nd home and so our beloved Asian Leopard Cats were housed within huge, luxury enclosures that had been created throughout our property. And as life amongst our family of Bengal’s got more exciting, our deep passion and interest in their ancestors grew - and subsequently a preliminary breeding programme of Asian Leopard Cats was born. But that was just the beginning…

At first, we believed that only the ancestors of our Bengal’s should be bred within our programme, as they are small enough to be housed within enclosures in ones back garden. But after Sarah and I brought our 2nd property in Bedfordshire we became so distressed over the plight of other scarce felines, and we also became so intrigued by the characteristics and beauty that the Bengal’s share with other species of small wild cats, that we have realised that we want, and must take an active part in the breeding and conservation of any type of endangered wild cat.

Our Bengal cats are also actively helping us in another important way – any excess funds that have been brought in through the sale of our beautiful pet kittens, is all going towards our wild cat breeding programme – without the financial support that our Bengal’s produce, we could not afford to help to save their wild ancestors as much as we hope to do so in the future!

Many Asian Leopard Cats now exist within our breeding programme and we also have some other types of small cats such as Ocelot’s, Geoffroy’s cats, Serval’s and African Leopards. However, we are determined to go many steps further than this and are therefore trying to import (and also obtain from UK conservationist friends) some of the rarest and most highly endangered species of wild cats in the world. These include the beautiful ‘Clouded Leopards’, the ‘Marbled Cats’, the ‘Pampas Cats’, the ‘Kod Kod Cats’ and also the most endangered wild cat in the world, the ‘Andean Mountain Cats’ – of which only about 100 survive in the whole world!

We are also working in close association with Dr Terry Moore who runs the countries biggest wild cat charity, the Wild Cat Survival Trust and also Mr Peter James who is the Curator of the Santago Rare Leopard Project. As well as this we work (to a lesser extent) alongside various other Wild Cat Sanctuaries. We hope to use the incredible expertise and immense knowledge that these people have with regard to wild cats, to encourage these tremendously rare wild cats to breed in captivity. Some of these species are SO rare that NONE exist in the whole of Europe and the fact that they are all so terribly endangered frightens me tremendously. We want to do something immensely constructive to aid the survival of these wild cats and to save them from the imminent extinction that they face – I hope that our enthusiasm and determination to help these wild cats could help to conserve them and their beauty for future generations to enjoy.

Sarah and I started as just breeders of domestic cats, but now, due to our tremendous passion and love for their ancestors, we believe that our future will consist of being part of a dedicated conservation program, which has a long-term aim to own vast conservation areas throughout the world. These huge protected areas of rainforests and jungles will eventually help to put these unique and endangered felines back into their natural wild habitats. Strong feelings of pride come over me when I realise that it is our pet Bengal’s who have helped us to create a future, that dedicates our lives to the survival of all species of endangered wild cats – after all, if it were not for these beautiful wild cats, then the Bengal cat that we love so much today would not exist at all!

Surely it is quite ironic to think that it is the remarkable characteristics, the beauty, as well as the excess funds that have been generated through the sale of our Bengal kittens that have given us the realistic goals which should eventually help us to conserve their wild ancestors and other species, within their natural habitat.

The Bengal, a domestic cat recently created from the wild Asian Leopard Cat, is now actively helping in the conservation of their very own threatened ancestors!!

C. Esmond Gay
Sarez Bengal’s 1998

Addition;

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

nd our CITES Appendix 2 non-endangered species (inc ALC’s and others) were given away to Pauline and Frank Turnock when they brought our entire collection of breeding Bengal’s. Our most important desire was for these species 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