Meet the Savannah Cat

We Savannah cats are a very new breed and our history is pawsitively fascinating. The very first Savannah was born in Pennsylvania in 1986, when a Bengal cat breeder named Judee Frank bred a Siamese cat with an African serval. Serval cats are native cats from Africa, so my earliest ancestor was half wild cat! Judee Frank named this first kitten “Savannah” because African servals come from the African savannah, and the name stuck. The first Savannah kitten was what the humans call an F1 Savannah, which means that it is a first generation hybrid cat with a wild serval parent. The F2 Savannah cat is second generation and has a wild serval grandparent.

After the first Savannahs started coming into the world, the humans found us so unique and lovable that we began to catch on. It took my ancestors a while before the humans would consider us a domesticated breed, but in the 1990s two humans – a Savannah enthusiast named Patrick Kelley and a breeder named Joyce Sroufe – came together and developed my breed standard. It took some convincing, but they were finally able to get The International Cat Association (TICA) to accept us in 2001. Because of our wild cat roots, only Savannahs that are at least four generations removed from a serval cat parents are considered fully domesticated and purebred.

Even though purebred Savannahs are pawfectly sweet kitties, some humans still think that we are too closely related to our wild ancestors. The Cat Fanciers’ Association does not recognize our breed, and we are even illegal in some U.S. states, like Georgia and Hawaii. Hopefully the humans change their minds about us, but until then, if you want a Savannah’s spotted cheetah-like looks in a legal domestic cat, there are Bengals, Ocicats, and Egyptian Maus (although, and I may be biased, I think Savannahs are the best looking of the bunch).