INTRODUCTION

The house cat is one of the most successful mammals on Earth. Absent only from a few offshore islands and Antarctica, its global population now numbers in the billions; in some countries, there are more cats than people. Its success embodies the adaptability, tenacity and, prior to modern human influence, the evolutionary triumph of the cat family. Excluding the domestic cat, felids are found on all continents except Antarctica and Australia. Wild cats also occur on any large island with a land bridge to the mainland in their recent geological past. The only large land masses that wild cats have never colonised have been separated from a natural source of cats for millions of years, among them Madagascar, Irian Jaya-Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Iceland. Others such as Ireland and the major islands of Japan had cats in recent prehistory but no longer have them today.

The centre of felid evolution (see Chapter 1) and still the richest place on Earth for the family is Eurasia. Twenty species* of cats occur in Asia, with two extending their distribution into Western Europe. A twenty-first species, the critically endangered Iberian lynx, now numbering fewer than 200 adults, is found only in Spain and perhaps Portugal. North America has the fewest cats with five resident species, though jaguars occurred there up until the mid-1900s, and recent photo graphs from the south-west United States might represent incipient recolonisation from northern Mexico. That leaves Latin America and Africa which share the same number of cats (though no species in common) at 10.

Wherever they occur, wild cats are notoriously secretive. Except for a handful of sites in Asia where tigers, leopards and Asiatic lions tolerate the presence of wildlife-watching tourists, Africa is the only place on Earth where sightings of wild cats are a reliable occurrence. In the protected areas of East and southern Africa’s savanna woodlands, it is possible to see more species of felids in a week than a lifetime of searching will produce in the forests of Asia or tropical America. Millions of people are drawn to Africa every year to see the wild cats. Most are virtually guaranteed to see lions and many will enjoy exceptional views of cheetahs and leopards.

However, few travellers realise that, alongside the big three, Africa is home to a further seven species of cats. Rarely observed and little understood, most have never been the focus of dedicated scientific research. Of these seven, three are marginally better known; the caracal, widespread and resilient but exposed to intense persecution from farmers and herders; the serval, one of three cat species endemic to Africa; and the African wildcat, progenitor of the house cat and now threatened by hybridisation with its domestic descendant.

Few people have seen the remaining four. Restricted to the arid areas of southern Africa, and the smallest cat on the continent, the black-footed cat would be a complete enigma but for one excellent, intensive study in South Africa. Science is unable to make even this modest claim for the remaining three species, the African golden cat, the jungle cat and the sand cat. The little we know of them derives largely from examining dead animals and their scats. In the case of the jungle cat and the sand cat, most of the material hails from Asia where they also occur; we continue to be largely ignorant of their behaviour, ecology and status in Africa. The African golden cat occurs only in the equatorial forests of Central and West Africa where it remains one of the least investigated cats on the planet.

This book deals with all of them. Inevitably, the bias is towards the large, well-studied species where decades of research and observation have produced hundreds of scientific papers and reports. However, we have also compiled all that is known about the lesser species, including observations from their Asian range or from captivity to fill in some gaps. We hope to provide a comprehensive overview of the cat family in Africa – from the famous and popular African parks with their celebrated, safari-friendly felids, to the few remaining places on the continent uninhabited by people, where a wild cat may spend its entire life without feeling the effects of human presence.

Unfortunately, such wilderness is now exceptional. Africa has the fastest growing human population of any continent and the pressure on its wild places and natural resources is intense. The loss of habitat and prey to an ever-expanding agricultural frontier is reducing the space available to all carnivores in Africa, with the cat family the most severely affected. As occasional predators of livestock and poultry (and, in the case of lions and leopards, of people), cats suffer still more concentrated persecution that has driven calamitous range loss outside protected areas and, with escalating frequency, inside them.

None of Africa’s cats is facing immediate extinction. But all of them have disappeared from large tracts they once inhabited and every species has relict populations whose loss is inevitable. The challenges facing cats in Africa are profound. Only one, the ubiquitous domestic cat, does not require dedicated conservation activity to ensure its survival for the next century. More than at any time in history, the fate of Africa’s wild cats is in our hands.

* In this book, we have adopted the most widely accepted view that there are 36 species of wild cats. See Chapter 1 for details.

KEY AREAS FOR AFRICAN CATS

This list is not exhaustive but the following areas protect important populations of cats.

ALGERIA

1. Tassili N’Ajjer complex

ANGOLA

2. Kissama NP

3. Iona - Mocamedes complex

4. Mavinga complex

BOTSWANA

5. Okavango

6. Nxai Pan & Magadikgadi NPs

7. Central Kalahari Game Reserve

8. Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

BURKINA FASO

9. Pendjari & Parc W complex

CAMEROON

10. Faro-Bénoué complex

11. Waza NP complex

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

12. Manovo-Gounda-St Floris- Bamingui complex

CHAD

13. Bahr Salmat-Zakouma complex

CONGO

14. Odzala-Koukoua complex

15. Nouabalé-Ndoki NP

CÔTE D’IVOIRE

16. Comoé NP

17. Marahoué NP

18. Taï Forest NP

DRC

19. Salonga NP

20. Bili-Uere ecosystem

21. Gangala-na Bodio

22. Upemba-Kundelungu complex

EGYPT

23. Elba ecosystem

ETHIOPIA

24. Bale ecosystem

25. Borana-Omo ecosystem

26. Awash ecosystem

GABON

27. Lopé NP

28. Minkébé ecosystem

GHANA

29. Mole NP

KENYA

30. Laikipia-Samburu complex

31. Tsavo-Amboseli ecosystem

32. Masai-Mara

MALAWI

33. Liwonde NP

MALI

34. Boucle du Baoulé NP

MOZAMBIQUE

35. Niassa Game Reserve

36. Coutada complex

NAMIBIA

37. Kaudom GR

38. Etosha NP

39. Skeleton Coast-Kunene ecosystem

NIGER

40. Aïr & Ténéré complex

NIGERIA

41. Yankari NP

SENEGAL

42. Niokolo Koba NP

SOUTH AFRICA

43. Greater Kruger ecosystem

44. Greater St Lucia Wetland ecosystem

45. Pilanesberg NP

SUDAN

46. Bahr el Gazal region

TANZANIA

47. Serengeti-Mara ecosystem

48. Ruaha/Rungwa complex

49. Selous ecosystem

UGANDA

50. Murchison Falls NP & surrounds

51. Virunga ecosystem

ZAMBIA

52. Kafue ecosystem

53. Luangwa complex

54. Lower Zambezi-Kariba complex

55. Liuwa Plain complex

ZIMBABWE

56. Hwange-Matetsi complex

57. Gonarezhou complex

58. Matusadona-Mana Pools complex