One of the three African wildcats that escaped from a Berks County wildfire sanctuary Wednesday night when high winds caused a tree to crash and damage their enclosure has been captured.
Ashes, a 10- year-old serval owned by Cricket Wildlife Center in District Township, is now home, said Melissa Descant, who owns the facility along with her husband, veterinarian Michael Descant. Two other servals, Cricket and Phoenix, are still missing.
Descant said there have been numerous sightings of the wildcats by neighbors and people traveling in the area, all within a mile or less of the sanctuary.
“We are responding to every tip and consistently getting there just a few minutes too late, so we are hopeful that we will be able to get them back soon,” she said.
Live traps are set up around the facility and rescue groups are using drones to search for the cats.
Descant reiterated that the cats are senior animals, and are not a danger to people or pets. She asked the community to please continue to call in sightings. The wildlife center’s phone number is 717-381-9893.
The wildlife center is about 7 miles from Alburtis and the border with Lehigh County. It is named for Cricket, one of the missing wildcats.
The 40-pound serval is a wildcat native to Africa that the couple rescued in 2012 while Michael Descant was attending veterinary school in Tennessee. Servals are legal pets in that state. Cricket’s owners surrendered him because he had a habit of eating rubber household objects and kept getting intestinal blockages that required expensive surgery.
Pennsylvania has strict rules about owning exotic cats like servals, so when it was time to move to the state, the Descants had to complete an extensive permit process to bring Cricket along, including permission from state and local officials and documentation of at least two years of experience with the breed.
The servals live in a 400-foot enclosure, complete with a heated hut and an elevated run that winds through the Descants’ wooded property.
Berks and Lehigh counties experienced wind gusts of up to 50 mph Wednesday night. Thousands of homes lost power, and emergency responders reported numerous trees down around the region. Cricket Wildlife staff said a large tree crashed down on a part of the servals’ enclosure, allowing the cats to escape.