A woman named Jean Mill is considered the founder of the Bengal cat breed. In 1946 after graduating with a degree in psychology she took genetic classes at University of California Davis. She was very interested in hybrid cats, so she did her term paper on hybridizing a Persian with a Siamese cat.
Jean pursued her dream and was one of the first contributors to the Himalayan breed. In 1965 she asked the ACFA (American Cat Fanciers Association) board to recognize the breed but lost the challenge. For her, it was time to move on.
In 1963 Jean (then Jean Sudgen) bought a female Asian Leopard cat named Malaysia from a pet store in Arizona (at the time they were available as pets). Because Jean believed that Malaysia was lonely she placed a black cat in her cage to keep her company. To Jean surprise, they mated and created a hybrid female namedKin Kin.
Scientist at Cornell University expected that the cat would be sterile, however, she produced a second generation litter, a male and a female.
After Jean’s husband died in 1965, she moved to California and gave up her project. Jean gave her cats to the San Diego Zoo. Unfortunately, Kin Kin and her female kitten named Pantherette died of pneumonia. The male kitten died some time before from a fall. There are no descendants from that first breeding experience.
In 1980, Jean (now Jean Mill) persuaded her husband Bob to restart her project in hybridizing cats. She contacted professor Willard Centerwall a pediatrician expert in genetics of the University of California at Davis and Loma Linda. He was using Asian Leopard cats to research the immunity this species has to feline leukemia. He crossed the Asian Leopard Cats (ALC) with domestic cats to isolate the genes involved. The professor needed to place the hybrids in homes, so Jane offered to keep and breed the cats in an effort to not only continue studying them, but to perpetuate their blood line.
In 1982 Jane and her husband traveled to India where they found a domestic kitten with leopard markings. They imported the kitten to the United States and bred him with the female hybrids. She called him Millwood Tory of Delhi. Today, his genes are found in many of the Bengal pedigrees.
Jean Mill
