The Sokoke (or Sokoke Forest Cat in long form, and formerly the African Shorthair) is a natural breed of domestic cat, developed and standardised, beginning in the late 1970s, from the feral khadzonzo landrace of eastern, coastal Kenya. The Sokoke is recognised by several major cat pedigree registry organisations as a standardised cat breed. It is named after the Arabuko Sokoke National Park, the environment from which the foundation stock was obtained, for breed development primarily in Kenya and Denmark. The cat is long-legged, with short, coarse hair, and typically a blotched tabby coat, though specific lineages have produced different appearances. Although once rumoured to be a domestic × wildcat hybrid, genetic study has not borne out this belief. Another idea, that the variety is unusually ancient, remains unproven either way. The native khadzonzo population is closely related to an island-dwelling group, the Lamu cat, further north.
Original khadzonzo landrace
Coastal Kenya's distinctive, free-roaming, feral cats – known as khadzonzo or kadzonzo, and found from city streets to the Arabuko Sokoke National Park – were "discovered", in the Western cat fancy sense, by horse breeder and wildlife artist Jeni Slater in 1978 near the Kenyan Watamu coconut plantation, Although there were ideas that it might be a new subspecies of wildcat, the tameness of the kittens Slater reared suggested that theoretical hybridisation with wildcats was unlikely, as did features like the long, tapered tail (not characteristic of any wild African species), a general form consistent with Asian domestic cat breeds (very unlike the cobby figure of wildcats), and the mottled, blotched coat pattern (a characteristic of urban cat populations).
While modern genetic work has yet to prove or disprove Couffer's idea, a DNA study by the US National Cancer Institute has determined that the spotted khadzonzo street cats of eastern Kenya, the cats of the Lamu Archipelago off the Kenyan coast, and the standardised Sokoke are all closely related. CGP categorised them in its "Arabian Sea Racial Group" (among a total of 12 feline "race" groupings). The group's shared DNA is derived primarily from Asian domestic cats, with ancient Arabian wildcat progenitors. This dispels the suspicion of some breeders
Gloria Moeldrop, a friend of Slater's, brought a pair of Slater's cats home with her to Denmark to breed in 1983, The cats were first shown in Copenhagen in 1984, then in Odense.
Slater introduced a darker Watamu street cat specimen into the breeding programme, in 1987, for genetic diversity. registered to establish future pedigrees, and bred; these became known as the "new line" Sokoke cats, with distinctive features from those of the Slater-developed "old line". The cats caught in the forest from 2001 onward have been added to this breeding programme, as have some more recent specimens.
Breed recognition
thumb|Adult contestant at a cat show
The standardised breed was first recognised by a breed registry, the Fédération Internationale Féline (FIFe), under the name Sokoke, after the forest. This occurred in 1993, after a multi-breeder demonstration of the new breed's consistent development at a cat show in Denmark.
The breed is also registered by The International Cat Association (TICA), based in the United States; it is eligible to be shown in the "Preliminary New Breed" class at TICA-sanctioned events.
The Sokoke is now also recognised by two national cat registries, the UK Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF), and the Canadian Cat Association (CCA).
Popularity
The is one of the rarest cat breeds. In the 2024 statistics of FIFe, one of the major global cat registries, the breed ranked as the least popular cat breed, with null registered Sokoke kittens that year.
Characteristics
Appearance
thumb|Neutered male
The bodies of the Sokokes are medium-sized overall, long and thin, with long legs. The back legs are longer than the front legs, similar to those of a wildcat. They also have a unique tip-toe gait, in part due to a straighter stifle as well as the longer back legs. Their eyes are usually amber to light-green, set in a comparatively small head, with long ears, reminiscent of various species of wild cat, though these are traits intentionally reinforced by artificial selection. The tail is tapered.
Coat
Sokokes typically have blotched (also known as classic; i.e., marbled large-spotted) tabby coats in shades of black to brown, broadly similar to those of the Bengal and Ocicat. which also produces a "cold-ticking" or "salt and pepper" look to the coat, overall. This combination has been called "African tabby"