Dear Wild Finca Community,

Thank you to everyone who reached out regarding our Genet camera trap footage at Wild Finca! Having Genets at Wild Finca is particularly exciting for us, as Luke and I were incredibly fortunate to see our first Genet's in Zambia, which was where we first met.

I (Katie) was managing a bushcamp and Luke had been hired as the in-house cameraman for a lodge in the Luangwa Valley. During our respective time there we both got to know the Genet rather well, a curious creature often seen on our night drives. Many people believe it is part of the cat family, in fact the Genet is in the Viverrids family, the same family as Civets. But they do look so cat-like, that Luke caught one cheeky guide claiming to guests that a Genet spotted near the lodge waterhole was actually a Leopard cub. When Luke asked him about the incident later, the guide confessed that he received more generous tips for sightings of Leopard cubs! .

A few years after Zambia we met the Genet again, this time in the South of Spain. It was whilst working on the story about the Iberian Lynx (at the time the rarest cat in the world) when we'd heard of a local photographer who had habituated a Genet. The photographer had taken us to see his Genet, who came each night for a bite of cat food under a floodlit corner of woodland. In fact the Genet had been there waiting for us and his evening starter! The photographer had only offered a few morsels, but enough to get some beautiful shots, before the Genet had disappeared into the night to continue with his nightly hunting.

We always dreamed of having Genet at Wild Finca, and we'd seen one race across the road one late night returning from a day hiking in the Picos. But it was only in 2021, three years after buying Wild Finca, that we captured our first Genet on the camera trap! We have since spotted them feasting on figs in summer too.

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There are conflicting beliefs about how Genets made their way to Europe. Some believe that the Genets in the Iberian Peninsula are from a population that remained isolated after the Gibraltar land bridge was submerged by the Mediterranean Sea, over three million years ago.

An alternative theory is that Genets were introduced to Iberia by the Moors as pets. Captive Genets are known to be affectionate and easy to house-train, and so it was likely Genets would have been kept as rat-catchers until they were gradually replaced by domestic cats during the Middle Ages. However, the variation in size, with smaller Genets found in the northern part of their range, plus the fact that bones of the Genet have been found predating the Moors, supports the idea of a natural European distribution for these animals. Perhaps our Spanish Genets are a mix of both!

If you would like to learn more about some of our Wild Finca inhabitants do head over and have a look at our blogs:
​Exploring Wild Finca Habitats: A Haven for Biodiversity & Wildlife Wonders at Wild Finca: Exploring the Ecosystem Through Recording and Observation​

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From our wild corner to yours,

Katie, Luke, Roan & Albus
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