Servals are native to sub-Saharan African savanna, not New Mexico, and their tall ears and long legs have made them a popular exotic pet. Any serval logged in the state is almost certainly an escaped or released captive animal, not evidence of a wild population taking hold.
The record is thin and erratic: a scattering of single-digit counts through most months, with a small spike of five in September and nothing at all in several other months. That pattern reads like isolated sightings of individual animals rather than a seasonal rhythm, which fits an exotic species with no breeding population here.
Full species profile
