Bengal History
After several attempts to cross small wild cats with domestics, Jean Sugden started her breeding programme of crossing Asian Leopard cats with domestic cats in the 1960's. This programme was abandoned due to personal reasons and it was not until the early 1980's that Jean Sugden (now Mills) began breeding again. In developing the Bengal breed many other outcross breeds were used including: Abyssinian, Egyptian Mau, Burmese, Domestic and American Shorthair.

A Bengal cat must be at least 4 generations removed from the Asian Leopard cat (or any other breed) to be called a Bengal.
All generations prior to this are classed as "Foundation" Cats and are classed as F1, F2 etc according to their generation number. 

After four generations, the nature of the cat is totally domestic in every way, but of course retains that unique look of a miniature leopard.

The first two (sometimes three) generations of males are sterile and the females have very small litters and make poor mothers. This made the development of the breed very slow due to the scarcity of Asian Leopard Cats and the numbers of resulting breeding stock. 

The name Bengal comes from the scientific name for the Asian Leopard Cat- Felis Bengalensis.

This Asian Leopard Cat "Taro of Bundas" is owned by Grace Lush in Canada.
Bengals have gained enormous popularity in both the U.S. and Britain and Europe over the past ten years, with the numbers in the U.S. surpassing 50,000. The breed has attracted huge interest wherever they appear and hold the record for the world's most expensive cat - 25,000 U.K Pounds!! The breed arrived in Australia in 1995 and here in New Zealand in mid-1996. Some initial fears as to their large size and suspect temperament proved groundless and they were fully accepted and approved for showing and breeding by the New Zealand Cat Fancy Inc. 
See our Awards page for the full details of our 2001/2 show season