[imagesource: Cincinnati Animal Care]

As if the real-life-to-movie funnel for stories about animals on drugs needed more fodder, everyone is now talking about ‘cocaine cat’.

You should know about Cocaine Bear, the seemingly spoofy box-office hit about a black bear’s drug-fueled murderous rampage, which was actually based on a true scenario about a bear swallowing a bag of the white powdery stuff.

Now, another similar situation has emerged with a wild cat that was captured in Cincinnati, which turned out to have cocaine in its system.

The serval named Amiry was kept as a pet and escaped from his owner’s car during a police stop in January, according to Ray Anderson with the Cincinnati Animal Care shelter.

NPR reports that the poor thing ran up a tree, prompting locals to make calls to the Hamilton County Dog Wardens (a division of Cincinnati Animal Care) reporting what they thought to be a leopard.

That’s when things got really wild:

Responders were able to retrieve Amiry and bring him back to the shelter, where the medical team called in an expert (whose credentials include working on the “Tiger King” case and the Zanesville tragedy) to identify his species.

The expert suspected Amiry was actually a serval, a long-legged, big-eared wild cat that is native to sub-Saharan Africa and illegal to own in Ohio. To confirm that, the medical team took a DNA sample — and also tested him for narcotics.

Illegal in the country and on an illicit substance landed the cat behind bars:

Image: Ray Anderson/Cincinnati Animal Care

“Given the nature of his capture, we cannot currently say if this is intentional or environmental,” Anderson said.

The reason they even test animals for drugs in those parts is down to a capuchin monkey named Neo who tested positive for amphetamines last year after being seized from his owner’s home.

South Africa’s East Rand region has a problem with wild cats being kept and then breaking free, but at least they aren’t on drugs. Then again, maybe they just aren’t being tested for such. Who knows what okes are really doing?

Neo, FYI, is now “safely in an undisclosed location,” and his owner was indicted on animal cruelty charges.

As for Amiry, he is doing” very well” at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden where he might become a member of its Cat Ambassador Program, which aims to educate visitors about the importance of wild cat predators and raise money for cheetah conservation efforts.

Speak of the devil: reports have just come in that officials are on the hunt for three buffalo in Kempton Park.

Residents have been urged to be careful and vigilant as the trio were caught on CCTV cameras, roaming near the R25 between Serengeti and Eastlands.

[source:npr]