This pair of cages was originally built to house callitrichids, later saki monkeys, then margay.
I was under the impression that black-footed cats develop respiratory problems very quickly if kept in humid environments? I would say the woods at Port Lympne have a fairly high humidity. Am I missing something here? It seems strange that such a scarce species in captivity would be kept in conditions that conventional thinking opposes. Unless PL are (A) only using the indoor housing, which they would have to do in winter anyway as these cats do not tolerate cold weather, or (B) they are going against popular consensus to see if they thrive....
Black-footed cats were briefly kept at Howletts in the 1980s in a purpose-built unit in the woods consisting of a row of 4 or 5 glass fronted indoor cages....the cats didn't last long and since the first Burmese pythons hatched in the 1990s the building has housed immature pythons.
