Unlike many other exotic pet species, wild cats usually cannot be kept indoors and require a large outdoor enclosure.
Usually, an enclosure meant for a pet exotic cat is built adjacent to the house in order to give the animal access into the living quarters.
While the husbandry conditions and handling might be similar to a purely private setting, the common definition of a pet only includes animals kept for companionship or pleasure.
The ancient Egyptians kept servals[1] in the same role as the African wildcat (the wild ancestor of modern house cats).
Big cats are substantially more expensive to maintain, pose a greater danger when being handled in direct contact, and may not always remain handleable when fully grown.
The resulting crosses (savannahs and caracats) inherit traits of both the domestic cat and the wild species.
[7] The passage of the Endangered Species Act in the United States effectively ended their keeping outside of zoological facilities due to interstate animal movement restrictions.