Kevin Murphy of Norfolk Wildlife Rescue caught a Norfolk escaped Savannah cat in Bramerton after it was found injured in a plant pot in a back garden. The cat, Blaze, had been missing since May and was taken to a vet with a broken paw.
Tom Baker, 27, first saw the cat on 23 June in a field between the A146 Loddon Road and Framingham Lane. He said it looked like a "small leopard" from a distance, and the sighting later drew national headlines.
Kevin Murphy in Bramerton
Murphy had been tracking the animal for three weeks after it was spotted near Bramerton, south of Norwich. He used a net to catch it safely once it was found in the garden, ending a search that had stretched across the Norfolk countryside for about two months.
The cat was identified through its microchip, and the owner lives in the NR1 postcode area of Norwich, about four miles away. Blaze is a Savannah cat, a cross between a serval and a domestic cat.
Blaze and the injuries
Murphy said Blaze had a broken right paw and a wound on its chest. The injuries add a hard edge to a case that began as a missing-pet search and ended with a rescue in Bramerton.
Owners of serval cats and first generation Savannah cats need a Dangerous Wild Animals licence, but Blaze was believed to be in the F2 category, which would mean no licence was required. A recent freedom of information request by Born Free found two Savannah cats and three servals registered at private addresses in South Norfolk.
Blaze is now with a vet, and the remaining question is how the injuries happened while it was loose. The capture has closed the search, but not the story behind it.
