Bengal Brutes terrorising our tabbies!
Aggressive, hungry for territory — and even mistaken for leopards. Now, the claws are out for ...
AS TIMID little Amber emerged from her cat flap and into the garden, the attacker pounced. Fur flew and caterwauls rang around the neighbourhood as the larger animal bullied its terrified rival into submission.
When the skirmish was over, Amber was battered and bloody, with a deep scratch along her side that needed stitches and antibiotics from the vet.
So what was the culprit? A neighbour’s dog, perhaps? A pit bull or a Rottweiler?
In fact, says Amber’s owner Laura Wilkins, it was another cat — but one with a difference: a Bengal cat.
This is no normal domestic moggy. With its striking blotched fur, long ears and piercing green eyes, it looks more like a South American ocelot.
Indeed, this week, after footage of a ‘giant cat’ stalking the Warwickshire countryside was shared online, residents in the village of Great Alne feared the animal could be a leopard. It later turned out to be a 4kg (nearly 9lb) Bengal cat called Hiro.
Today’s Bengal cats were first created in the U.S. in the 1970s, when a scientist named William Centerwall cross-bred domestic cats with the leopard cat, a wild animal found in the jungles of South-east Asia. As their name suggests, these creatures look like miniature leopards, and a few hybrids of leopard cats and domestic cats had existed in Malaya since the 1920s.
By continuing to interbreed generation after generation, choosing the wildest-looking cat each time, breeders have selected the characteristics they want to appear — which can include aggressive tendencies. For, like its wild relatives, the Bengal cat has a powerful instinct to hunt and kill.
They are also extremely territorial, chasing away any cat of whatever breed that dares to enter their domain. That works well in the jungle but can cause real problems on residential streets.
Typically, they weigh between 10lb and 15lb — slightly more than the average domestic cat.
LAURA, who lives in a part of North London ‘packed with cats’, is not the only owner with a grievance against these fierce felines. In the village of Chestfield, in Kent, a Bengal savaged pedigree cat Daisy so badly that her owner, pensioner Margaret Sandiford, was left with a vet’s bill of nearly £200.
‘It was really horrible. My cat could have died,’ she said. ‘Even the vet who stitched her up was shocked by the injury.’
Now, owners of domestic cats savaged by Bengals are fighting back. Internet forums are awash with pleas for help from people complaining that their cats have been transformed from happy pets into anxious creatures too afraid to venture outdoors.
One Sheffield owner whose pet was recently prescribed ‘stress relief’ tablets by the vet, writes that for the past three months her tenyear-old moggy has been attacked almost every day by a large male Bengal living down the road.
‘My cat has undergone a complete personality change from an easygoing, affectionate animal to a twitchy, nervous one.’
Other owners have described Bengal cats as ‘psychotic’ and ‘the pit bull terriers of the cat world’. Some believe it is only a matter of time before a Bengal attacks a human baby.
One solution would be for their owners to keep them away from other animals by ensuring they stay indoors as much as possible.
But it seems that sometimes the sort of people who buy Bengals — often as a status symbol, following the example set by American reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian — turn out to be almost as antisocial as their pets.
Some owners of savaged cats who have politely approached the owners of Bengals to complain have been subjected to abuse or even accusations of harassment. Now, questions are even being asked in Parliament.
In a debate on the Exotic Pets Trade in December last year, Sir David Amess, Conservative MP for Southend West, recalled that when he encountered one of these cats while out canvassing, he thought the owners were keeping a young leopard.
But while owning a leopard would require a licence under the 1976 Dangerous Wild Animals Act, that legislation came into law before Bengals existed on the pets market. So, for the moment at least, their owners have the law on their side. Sir David pointed out that the rise of the internet allows unscrupulous dealers to advertise and sell animals for the very quality that makes them a threat to other cats, namely their aggression.
‘These breeds are demanding and require much human interaction,’ he said. ‘They need a lot of daily exercise and a large territory. They are often aggressive to other cats, and will actively seek out neighbouring cats to hurt to maintain their territory.’
As a result, many cat welfare charities refuse to take in Bengals, even when the owners realise they have taken on more than they can cope with. Recently, the Bengal Cat Helpline changed its name from Bengal Cat Rescue, after telling harassed owners that it couldn’t take in any more animals.
Debbie Connolly, the charity’s behaviour consultant, warns all potential buyers to make sure they have the time and willingness to own such a demanding pet.
Bengal cats are not for busy working owners, she stresses. They need constant care and attention, respond badly to discipline and will seek out rival cats to terrorise, even entering homes to attack them. ‘They are not playing. They mean it!’ Ms Connolly warns.
There is no doubt that the popularity of Bengals — barely heard of in Britain 20 years ago — is still on the rise, despite the warnings. But as there is no register, exact numbers are not known.
On the website pets 4 homes, there are currently 354 Bengal cats and kittens for sale, ranging in price from £400 to £700.
But it’s not just Bengal cats we should be worrying about. It seems there is a rise in savannah cats being kept as pets in the UK, too.
THE savannah cat is a cross between a domestic cat and the African serval — dubbed ‘the miniature cheetah’ — whose natural home is on the African plains.
I have watched these long-eared, long-legged creatures hunting in Kenya’s Masai Mara game park, and I can tell you they pack an awful lot of energy into a small animal. A serval can leap 9ft in the air to catch its prey.
Nothing resembling a serval should be stuck in a suburban semi. Yet YouTube features videos from the U.S. in which proud owners show off the leaping prowess of their savannah cats.
The online second-hand sales website Preloved has page after page of savannah kittens for sale at prices ranging from £350 to £1,500 — quite a hefty profit for unscrupulous breeders.
The pictures make them look cute, and at an early age they are. But fully grown they can strike utter terror into domestic cats.
Back in North London, Laura Wilkins has installed an automated cat flap to try to stop her neighbour’s Bengals coming into her home. Yet even though it is programmed to respond only to Amber’s microchip, the Bengals are so lightning fast that when the flap flips up for Amber, they chase right in after her.
‘On at least three occasions we’ve come home, the Bengals have broken in and Amber is cowering under a sofa somewhere. At other times we find them battering at the cat flap as if they’re going to smash right through it. People complain about urban foxes, but no fox has ever broken into my house!’
Laura tried throwing water over the intruders but has since been told that, unlike other cats, Bengals actually like getting wet — so that doesn’t work, either. ‘They’re like some kind of “Terminator” cat breed,’ she says resignedly.