Last missing African serval on Vancouver Island now back home

An exotic cat missing on Vancouver Island for a week has now been returned home.

Bill Edwards – the African servals' owner – and his girlfriend Laurel Bablitz believe someone deliberately released Luna and her mate Tumaz from a pen in the couple's Qualicum Beach backyard last weekend.

The male serval was recaptured mid-week, but Luna remained at large until earlier this weekend, when Bablitz got a message from neighbours who had trapped the cat in their duck enclosure.

"They had dogs that chased her into the duck pen and they were able to close her in that," Bablitz told CTV News on Sunday.

"Bill just went down there with a crate and they got her loaded and brought her home."

Bablitz said she and Edwards are relieved to have both their pets back, and Luna seemed relieved to be back with her mate, as well.

When the servals first got out on Sunday, Oct. 2, it appears they killed a domestic cat.

Bablitz said Luna also killed some of the neighbours' ducks, but that she hadn't heard of any other damage caused by the African felines.

"She's been gone for a week and I haven't had any further reports of other animals being killed, so that's a relief, too, that nobody else had to deal with that," Bablitz said.

African servals do not fall under B.C.’s controlled alien species regulations and can be owned in the province as pets.

Owning the exotic cats as pets is controversial, however. The BC SPCA says servals "are difficult to contain in a home or enclosure setting" and that they're not easily house-trained.

"These wild cats are not much bigger than a medium-sized dog, but they still retain their wild instincts and are cunning escape artists," reads the BC SPCA's information page on the animal.

Bablitz previously told CTV News she knows some people don't like the idea of keeping servals as pets, but releasing them from their enclosure is not the solution.

She said the reaction to a post she made on a local Facebook group shortly after the servals went missing got "so abusive" that the moderators of the group decided to take it down.

The negative reaction – and the possibility of Luna acting on her predatory instincts and killing more pets or livestock – made Bablitz and Edwards worried for their serval's safety.

"We were really concerned that somebody was going to end up shooting her," she said. "It's not her fault, you know."

Bablitz said she and Edwards also received a lot of support from the community during their cats' disappearance, but the ordeal is not one they want to repeat.

"We've had some people in the community offer to provide more fencing and panels and different things – a security camera and some lights – we will take care of it, for sure," Bablitz said. "We never want to go through this again."

With files from CTV News Vancouver Island's Gord Kurbis and Adam Chan