Anyone know what the deal is with keeping large cats is, here in UK??

I'm not talking about Lions or Tigers. More along the lines of a Lynx.

DWA? Impossible to find? What?

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Used to have a big cat coming into my back garden until the redtailed buzzard scared it off.

Hiya,

If you are not talking the big cats, but purely the smaller ones, then you would be looking at the likes, of Asian Leopard Cats, Servals, Lynx, Geoffroys, Wild Cats either Scottish or European, even Ocelot, there are a few others, not so readily available.

Keeping them, will come down to

1] Your actual space that you have available
2] Your council and their political stance on whether or not they are going to pass you a DWAL if the species you are looking at requires such a licence.
3] Your knoweldge, research and undertaking to actually and physically look after and maintain a cat species.
4] The actual availability of the species you are looking to secure.

We are currently client handling a female Asian Leopard Cat DWAL, as well as a pair of female Servals, again DWAL.

We have Ocelots which have just come out of quarantine for clients, and in the main come the spring, we are offered in the region of 30 or so various cat species from European private collections and zoos.

British zoos, may, l point the word 'may' out - may decide to rehome cat species to what they class as professional keepers.

Ironically l am as l write this talking to an Ocelot owner. But there are not many specialised cat keepers in the UK, say for instance as many primate keepers as there are.

Peter James was probably one of the biggest private collectors of cats, but due to illness he is now out of the running.

Its not that they are not there, but the ones that are, are either secured already to big cat collections, game parks, or as already discussed zoos.

Then you must also consider price, if you secure from a 'game park' it may be fairly reasonable, if you buy from a private collector it may not be. If you secure from Europe, then your cat/s must under go six months quarantine, at a rough cost of £1950 or £75 per week.

If you can find a quarantine centre you would be doing very well, especially for some of the medium sized cats, and if you can not then you may decide to self quarantine, which means building your own centre which must be DEFRA approved. You will then have that cost to consider.

Once you have secured your cats/possibly quarantined/built the centre also...then you must look at the running costs of the species themselves, plus your as said licencing costs, your public liability, not forgetting your transporting insurances if from Europe, as well as your freight costs, and your additional quarantine vehicle costs.

It can be a tremendously expensive business.

I imported a Cheetah two years ago, lovely 16 week old animal, from Germany, the cat cost £7,000 and the costs and everything else eventually totalled at roughly £11,000.

It might be better for you look at Camels or even Penguins which are cheaper by far all told.

Rory

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That has to be one of the most random things you could have come out with Rory

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Ray,

You are spot on, l am not even quite sure why l wrote that tbh.

I think because l imported a pair of Camels into the UK last year at a total cost of £7,000 and l am selling four Humboldt Penguins at present which work out at E7000 to another client.

Bizarre, l agree

LOL

R

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I have been looking into Ocelots for a couple of years now I defiantly have the space for an enclosure but have not tried for a licence as I live relatively close to a RAF base so think it would be unfair on them, all the noise but maybe one day lol

As suggested above, they are DWA and you must go through the procedure. Unless you have some real money behind you, you can forget about the bigger cats.

If you're just interested, here's some prices for the bigger cats from one of my suppliers:

Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) - 10,000 euros
Civit (Civettictis civeta) - 600 euros (not a cat!)
Servel (Felis serval) - 1,400 euros
wild cat (Felis sylvestris) - 400 euros
Lion (Panthera leo) - 20,000 euros

to put things in perspective, a hippo is 7000 euros, and a giraffe 6000, baboons about 600 depending on type. Shipping comes in at about £8 per kg of bodyweight (which means the hippo isn't the good deal it looks like )

Very quick disclaimer - I don't source animals for other people. PLEASE don't PM me for contacts unless you're already keeping them, in which case there's no need anyway

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Wanted: someone in North London area who can help me learn more about keeping venomous snakes. Happy to donate to food costs etc in return for experience.

The way some of you people talk about these animals make it sounds like you have some warehouse somewhere full of things you can sell off to the highest bidder.

That's not that far from reality actually.

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Wanted: someone in North London area who can help me learn more about keeping venomous snakes. Happy to donate to food costs etc in return for experience.

where do you think pet shop animals come from?

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Mason

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