The African black-footed cat: a furry pack of dynamite

Posted on 29 June 2011

Computer whizz and one-time astronaut Mark Shuttleworth was once asked what struck him most when he gazed down at Earth from space. “˜Great beauty,’ he said, “˜and human-made tears in the fabric of life. From up there you can see what we’re losing. Humans have changed the planet.’

We share with elephants the ability and seeming need to alter the world around us. They turned forests into grassland and made paths for others to follow. We tamed wild lands, made farms and built cities. Human terra-forming has been hard for all wild creatures – even for elephants.

Some animals adapted to the new environments and niches and learned to live with humans. Some were bred for our consumption or pleasure and prospered. Many backed into the declining wilderness areas. But there were those that adopted a strategy that served them well – secrecy.

Like all apes, we seized the day and slept by night. They became nocturnal, silent, with eyes that drank moonlight and penetrated the dark like sharpened daggers. One of those is the leopard and you have probably been watched by one and never known. Another is the African black-footed cat – a furry pack of dynamite.

African folklore will tell you it can rip the jugular out of a giraffe. While certainly not true, the smallest feline in Africa is extremely ferocious for its size – a cat with attitude and the highest kill rate of any feline in the world. This leopard-spotted ball of intent catches, on average, one prey animal every 50 minutes, chomping countless birds, reptiles, insects and around 3 000 rodents a year. Lions, cheetahs or leopards are slouches by comparison.

Felis nigripes, to give the cat its proper name, has a head size about the same as a regular moggy, but is around half the weight – between one and two kilograms. If it were lion size back when humans lived in caves, I probably wouldn’t be around to write this, having become extinct.

This is definitely not a cat you want to mess with. According to Peter Comley and Salome Meyer, who studied them in Namibia, even if reared from young in domestication, the black-footed cat never loses its wildness and will frequently attack its keeper or withdraw, growling. When cornered, it will launch itself, spitting and snarling, at its adversary, regardless of its size.

Alex Sliwa, one of the few researchers ever to study the cat, found that they don’t shy away from biting and stinging prey, such as scorpions and snakes. He’s seen a black-footed cat jump with bared claws and fangs into the face of a black-backed jackal, an animal eight times its size, stalk springbok lambs and go for blue cranes and even bigger birds.

He tracked a cat he named Aris in the Kalahari and described its hunting skill. “˜Every muscle in the small, wiry body tightens. He is now 50 minutes into a night-time stalk, his snake-like tail swishing violently as he closes in on a white-quilled bustard bedded down, chicken-like, in the brick-red sand. I hold my breath. A bright moon bathes the arid landscape in a natural spotlight, enabling me to observe the cat’s hunting behaviour quite clearly.

“˜The bustard opens one eye warily. For a fraction of a second, it looks as if it’s about to erupt skyward and emit its insultingly loud scream. But the cat moves fast. Planting his tiny black feet into the ground, he leaps and snags the bustard as it tries to take off. The bird, almost half the cat’s weight, struggles for a few seconds before needle-sharp teeth break its neck.’

The black-footed cat doesn’t really have black feet but furry black pads, and has accordingly been renamed the rather less dramatic small-spotted cat. It’s found in the drier parts of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and western Zimbabwe – one of the few carnivores dwelling across that wide region. It can go without water, gaining its entire moisture requirement from its food.

Its Afrikaans name is miershooptier – anthill tiger – as it often sleeps and raises its kittens in hollowed-out termite mounds. It has a formidable sense of hearing and large eyes that make full use of available light and can easily see by starshine alone. At night its sleek fur, marked by bold, black spots and black leg rings, allows it to melt into the background, rendering it invisible to prey.

Secrecy, hunting prowess and a wide range, however, don’t ensure invulnerability. It is threatened by farm dog hunting packs; having its habitat ploughed up as fields, thereby reducing the rodent, bird and insect populations; and by locust spraying, which kills an important food source and can poison the cat. The species is listed as vulnerable to extinction on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red Data List and its population continues to shrink. It is estimated that fewer than 10 000 black-footed cats are alive in the wild. In captivity, where it could be bred for re-introduction to the wild, it dies easily and is subject to cage boredom (basically depression).

Near Cradock in the Eastern Cape, however, farmers Richard and Marion Holmes have taken up its cause, establishing the Cat Conservation Trust and successfully breeding Felis nigripes for movement to zoo breeding programmes or re-introduction to the veld.

You’ll probably never see Southern Africa’s most secret cat in the wild, but if you’re in the Cradock area and want to have a look at this atomic kitten, drop in on the Holmeses and you’ll be welcomed. They have a lodge and a bush camp where you can stay.

Contact Cat Conservation Trust

Tel 048-881-2814,
Cell 082-868-1936,
Email [email protected]
Web www.karoocats.org (information), www.predatours.co.za (accommodation).






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