Wilhelma – the servals have a new enclosure

21.3.2023 – Source: Wilhelma, Photos by Petra Ballon

The servals have a new enclosure in Wilhelma – a modern home for African small cats. The new enclosure for the serval pair Nio and Duma on the grounds of the former ostrich enclosure, which covers an area of around 300 square metres, is ready: it was built almost entirely by Wilhelma staff in Stuttgart.

This is Nio

This beauty is Duma

The new attraction was financed by the Friends of Wilhelma and a six-figure donation from the Helmut & Babs Amos Foundation. Animal lover Helmut Amos has lived in South Africa for many years. The German, who was born in Heilbronn, is appearing for the first time as a sponsor for the Zoological-Botanical Garden and has deliberately chosen to support an African species.

Nio looks very satisfied with his new surroundings

The outdoor enclosure, designed with a lot of wood and easily visible through large glass panes, was modelled close to nature with a small clearing, a stream and tall grasses. Great importance was also attached to merging the zoo landscape with the adjacent fauna-flora habitat (FFH) of Rosenstein Park. In the interior, plants and tree trunks provide hiding places for the cats, and they can relax and observe the surroundings on spacious lounging areas.

The long-legged hunters, originally from Africa, feed in the wild mainly on small rodents, birds or reptiles by carefully roaming through the grassland and pricking up their ears. Once they have located a prey, they remain motionless until they jump – just as we know it from domestic cats that wait in the grass for voles. With servals, however, it looks much more spectacular: They can jump up to six metres far and four metres high, which is why the new serval enclosure is also covered with special nets. With their enormous jumping power, servals can even catch birds in mid-air.

Nio has been hunting in the ‘jungle’ …

…. and he was lucky!

Don’t you even think of taking my food away from me!

Yammy, yammy! The food tastes better when you’ve hunted it yourself!