Arrested For Owning Two Wild Cats

NEIGHBOURS were surprised when they saw an individual walking two cats which looked suspiciously like Lynx and contacted SEPRONA, the animal protection arm of the Guardia Civil.

They soon discovered the property where these two wild cats were being housed in the municipality of Santiurde de Toranzo (Cantabria) and asked for paperwork proving that the animals had been obtained properly.

Having established that the cats had been purchased without proper paperwork from a couple in Toledo, specialists were called in to determine the species of the two animals.

It was clear that they were of the genus Caracal caracal (often called a Desert Lynx) and although not the scarce Iberian Lynx (and indeed not actually Lynx at all), these two cats were of a type found across Africa and the Middle East.

As such, they are a protected species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and should not be traded as there was no CITES import permit or a captive-breeding certificate.

Officers then contacted the couple in Toledo and discovered that there was no legitimate invoice nor any supporting documentation concerning the ‘pedigree’ of the two cats.

These investigations established that all three appeared to be guilty of either purchasing or trafficking members of an endangered species as well as smuggling and the matter was referred to the Ministry for Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge.

In the meantime, the two cats which were being kept in small outdoor cages were confiscated and it was decided that they needed to be kept in much better conditions.

They were therefore assigned a place within the network of CITES rescue centres, which, due to its characteristics and capacities, would be more suitable to house them.

A specialist team from the APP Primadomus Foundation, with offices in Spain, the Netherlands and Germany, which has among its aims the rescue and rehabilitation of wild animals, took charge of the cats which were transferred to a reception centre that the Foundation runs in Alicante Province.