Servals are medium-sized African wild cats increasingly kept in zoo and private collections. Their specific nocturnal, active, and solitary nature creates distinctive welfare management challenges.
Serval welfare in captive settings is strongly influenced by whether their nocturnal activity pattern is accommodated and whether they can express natural hunting behaviour. Facilities designed around human visiting hours that expect or demand serval activity during daytime fail to respect their natural activity pattern and create chronic disturbance stress. Enclosure complexity that provides elevated viewing positions, cover for stalking approach, and open areas for the rapid leaps that characterise serval hunting behaviour engages their most distinctive behaviours. The growing private exotic pet trade in servals represents a major welfare concern: these wild cats cannot be appropriately socialised to domestic life and suffer in typical household environments. The welfare of privately kept servals is generally very poor compared to appropriate zoo or sanctuary care.