Servals are more tricky to breed than lions/tigers, snce they did not have such long history of captive husbandry and have less tolerance to cramped conditions.
Servals are more tricky to breed than lions/tigers, snce they did not have such long history of captive husbandry and have less tolerance to cramped conditions.
If Murzuk's story is not a pure fiction, turning a male lynx into a pet can be explained by his semi-free lifestyle. If he was locked in a lodge/cage without opportunity to walk around and hunt, this should have caused rising frustration and subsequent attack in direct contact even with his owner. Remember that Murzuk killed the menagerie's director later in the story, having identified him as an enemy and cause of his misery.
Another, more reliable story is about female Dixie kept by Elena Krutovskaya. This animal was not hand-raised but tamed to a decent level, not without help of a dog (Murzuk also lived with dog)
I suppose there are and were lot of hand-raised pet lynxes in Russia (and some had forest rangers as owners), but they're likely females. Surely not everyone bothered to establish a true bond with their animal while keeping its needs, and the lynx was given away in the end.
