Animals
Jaguar in the living room, wolf in the garden: Swiss are importing more and more hybrid animals – the problems are serious
The desire for wild and exotic animals is great among pet owners. The Swiss animal protection organization is now warning about Bengal cats that attack domestic cats.
It howls loudly at night like its wild counterparts in the Amur Mountains in the far east, and it can attack people. For birds, reptiles and often even the neighbor’s cat, the animal is pure horror. It is strong at jumping and highly skilled as a hunter. Despite everything: the Bengal cat is the latest fashionable animal in Switzerland.
More and more Bengal cats are being imported into Switzerland.
Not only are there too many cats, which is why the Swiss Climate Protection Association recently called for a cat moratorium, but there are also apparently the wrong ones: hybrid cats that behave like predators. Animals that like to bite and hunt and that often cause havoc in residential areas. Hybrid animals are easy to define. Wild cat species are being bred into domesticated house cats.
Anyone who keeps hybrid cats has a piece of raw, uncivilized wildness in their single-family home. The Bengal cat is a revival of the Asian wildcat; the Savannah cat is a cross between a domestic cat and a small African cat, the serval, which weighs up to 20 kilograms and can be visited in any zoo, under safe conditions.
First figures on the bad image of a fashion animal
For the first time, there are now figures on the situation of hybrid cats in Switzerland. The Swiss Animal Protection Association (STS) commissioned a survey of veterinarians. The results are dramatic.
The figures will be officially published at the end of the year and this newspaper has exclusive access to them. Arlette Niederer, cat expert at the STS, summarises them: “When asked: ‘Do you consider keeping hybrid cats problematic?’, 100 per cent of vets answered yes.”
80 percent of veterinarians have noticed an increase in hybrid cats in their practices. When you consider the large proportion of rural practices that specialize in livestock, and when you take into account that overpriced hybrid cats tend to be an urban phenomenon, the result leaves no questions unanswered: the hybrid cat boom is spreading in Switzerland.
What is striking in the survey is the critical attitude of the medical profession, who all seem to experience similar things in their everyday lives: over 80 percent of veterinarians say that hybrid cats suffer from breed-specific illnesses or behavioral problems. In concrete terms, this means that the animals seem to be less tolerant of their fellow cats than other cats – more aggressive, tend to be less clean, and have a strong hunting instinct and a hyperactive temperament.
The conclusion for handling in the doctor’s office is obvious. According to STS, 85 percent of veterinarians report that the cats are difficult to hold and therefore often have to be briefly sedated for even the smallest routine examinations or blood samples. More than half of those surveyed also stated that they have had a cat on their operating table more than once that had been seriously injured by hybrid cats.
Disturbed, disturbed, unclean and aggressive
But the animals’ appeal seems undiminished. Arlette Niederer suspects that it is the animals’ appearance that appeals to their owners. Social media does the rest, with advertising exploiting the beauty of wild animals for its own ends. Those who buy a hybrid cat often do so without being informed and by making a “spontaneous purchase on the Internet.”
The animal welfare organization Vier Pfoten is also aware of the problem of hybrid cats. According to Yasmine Wenk, campaign coordinator for pets, a survey of Bengal cat owners showed: “The most common behavioral problems are destructive behaviors, such as scratching furniture when the animals are bored and cannot hunt.”
However, Bengal cats are also known to suffer from “pica”, an eating disorder “in which the cats eat objects that are not part of their food”. Increased aggression towards other animals and even people who live in the same household is also typical. Yasmine Wenk says unequivocally: “Four Paws and other experts in this field agree that hybrid cats are not suitable as pets.”
Sharp increase in Bengal cats since Corona
The view of Vier Pfoten and the STS study reflects the official Swiss animal statistics Identitas: In July 2016, only 4,499 Bengal cats were registered in Switzerland. Corona led to an initial increase in the number of animals, with 8,742 Bengal cats officially being in Switzerland by July 2020. Four years later, in July 2024, 14,380 Bengal cats were registered, according to Identitas. Anyone who, like the animal welfare organization, expects that only a third of cat owners register their animals comes up with a remarkable number.
It is estimated that there could currently be up to 45,000 Bengal cats in Switzerland. This is increasing the pressure on domestic cats – and on the prey of hybrid cats, on birds, on amphibians. Even chickens and rabbits are not safe from Bengal cats. Animal welfare organizations now want to put a stop to the uncontrolled marauding of these animals. They are reacting to the survey results. They want to fight even more decisively than before for compulsory registration of domestic cats in Switzerland.
Hybrid dogs for the “wilderness” feeling
The interest of domesticated humans in wild animals is old. In the past, Hollywood stars kept cheetahs, panthers or white tigers and walked them on a leash in public under the flash of camera cameras. Today, you are exclusive if you can afford a Caracat, the miniature puma, or a wolf-like dog, a Czechoslovakian wolfdog, a cross between a German shepherd and a Carpathian wolf. Because in the dog world, too, the thrill of keeping a hybrid dog is great.
The Czechoslovakian Wolfdog is a cross between a Carpathian Wolf and a German Shepherd.
As with hybrid cats, the main breeding sites for dogs that have been crossed with a wolf are located abroad. The STS describes the majority of these as “very dubious”. It is aware of two cases in which wolf crossbreeding also occurred in Switzerland.
The renowned dog trainer Vreni Guggisberg knows from her own experience the animal suffering that is often hidden behind hybrid animals. Guggisberg, who has been active in the greater Zurich area for almost twenty years, states: “Hybrid dogs naturally keep a very large distance from people.” The animal is also often overwhelmed when dealing with other dogs because its body language is different to that of a domesticated house dog. She also notices: “Hybrid dogs need a very long socialization phase.”
In a particularly sad case, she herself came across a hybrid dog that had been bred from a fox and a domestic dog. This was done deliberately, as the proud owners explained. The expert’s verdict coincides with that of the animal welfare organizations: “Anyone who keeps a hybrid dog or cat does so solely for themselves. The animal is not being served any service.”
