Research synthesis: serval conservation status

This synthesis reviews the conservation standing of the serval, broadly assessed as low risk across much of sub-Saharan Africa but with severely reduced or vanished populations at the northern and southern range margins. It weighs evidence that wetland drainage, grassland conversion, the skin trade, and persecution drive local declines, while adaptability to farmland buffers the species in places. The review highlights uneven monitoring, with good data from parts of East and Southern Africa and little from West and Central Africa. It frames priority actions as wetland and grassland protection, reducing snaring and trade in skins, and managing human-serval conflict, and notes the species value as an indicator of healthy moist grasslands.