Letter from the Estate Manager's Desk

Murray Retief - Estate Manager

We are truly blessed by our wonderful surroundings at The Hills. That’s the first thing that came to my mind when we were recently surprised with the pictures of servals in Royal Albatross Road taken by one of our residents early one morning in May. We knew that they had been around in the past but this was the first time that someone was lucky enough to come across them in quite a few years. And what beautiful cats they are! I was therefore very interested to find out more about our spotted furry friends.

The serval is a wild cat native to Africa and is found widespread in sub-Saharan countries except for the rainforest regions of the continent. It is a slender, medium-sized cat of about sixty centimetres in height and it weighs between nine and eighteen kilograms. It has a smallish head, large ears, a golden-yellow to buff coat spotted and striped with black and a short, blacktipped tail so they closely resemble juvenile leopards or cheetah. Interestingly, it has the longest legs of any cat relative to its body size. They are solitary carnivores which are active both by day and at night and it preys on rodents, small birds, frogs, insects and reptiles.

During the hotter hours of the midday, they will usually rest or groom themselves in the shade of dense bushes and grasses which makes our green belt areas in the Estate a perfect and safe habitat for them. The serval has excellent vision, hearing and sense of smell which they use to locate their prey and they will typically jump up to two meters into the air and then land on it using its forefeet (the closely set ears can rotate up to 180 degrees independently of each other). As they are mostly solitary animals, there is little social interaction among servals except during the mating season when

pairs of opposite sexes may stay together for some time. The only long-lasting bond, however, appears to be that between the mother and her cubs. They have a gestational period of two to three months after which a litter of one to four young cats are born. The kittens are weaned at the age of one month and begin hunting on their own at six months of age. They leave their mother at the age of around twelve months. The males usually tend to be sturdier than the females. Like many other cats, the serval is able to purr but it is also known to sometimes make high-pitched chirping, hissing, cackling, growling, grunting and meowing sounds of different sorts.

Although they are excellent and opportunistic hunters, they are completely harmless to us humans so we therefore have no reason to fear them. Also, as these animals tend to be fairly shy they will mostly avoid contact with people which accounts for the fact that they are not often observed. That is why we are so excited by the recent sightings and we truly hope to be able to see them more regularly. Should you therefore happen to spot them at any time, please let us know so that we can try and track their movements around the Estate.

Thank you for sharing in our excitement and we wish you and your families well as always. Also please be sure to keep the fire wood and hot chocolate handy and stay warm in the coming months of winter!

Murray Retief