Research overview: servals in farmland and human-modified landscapes

A growing body of camera-trap work documents servals persisting in agricultural mosaics, irrigated farmland, and even some peri-urban edges where wetlands and rodents remain. This overview synthesizes findings that servals can exploit irrigation channels, sugarcane, and grassy field margins that support high rodent numbers, sometimes reaching surprising densities in such anthropogenic habitats. Yet the same landscapes bring road mortality, persecution, snaring, and dogs. The pattern suggests servals are moderately adaptable provided cover and prey persist near water, but not immune to the hazards of living alongside people. Studying these human-dominated populations matters because much of the species future may lie in shared landscapes, where simple measures protecting wet field margins could sustain them.