Is it true that male domestic cats kill kittens?

Do male cats kill kittens?

To answer the question, you have to break it down into categories which I’ve done. There’s a difference between the behaviour of the wildcat ancestor which is the same species as the domestic cat and from which we can learn about domestic cat behaviour, unsterilised male cats, sterilised male cats and kittens parented by …

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Domestic cats have smaller brains than their wildcat ancestors

African wildcat compared with domestic cat

A study has concluded that the brains of domestic cats have shrunk during the time that they have been domesticated. And having shrunk I have concluded that domestic cats are probably more stupid today than they were at the time of the Ancient Egyptians. And I suspect that they will go on becoming a …

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European wildcat habitat and hunting – classic cat technique

The European Wildcat is, like other Wild cat species, under continual pressure from human population growth and activity. The wildcat is the ancestor of the domestic cat and therefore they are arguably the ‘authors of their own demise’ in that they mate with outside, unsterilised domestic cats resulting in the gradual hybridisation of the …

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European wildcat description – a wild-looking tabby cat

European wildcat meows

Take a domestic tabby cat, make them a little larger, make them more substantial with a thick and slightly longer and denser coat, make the tabby markings a little less pronounced and give the cat that classic, unneutered jowly appearance and you’ve got yourself a European wildcat. The same kind of description applies to …

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Can European wildcats be domesticated?

European wildcat meows

The question is a sensible one because all of the world’s half a billion domestic and feral cats originate in a domesticated North African wildcat (Far Eastern wildcat or African-Asian wildcat). It happened about 10,000 years ago. Nowadays there are still wild cats roaming around Europe. These are European wildcats which Ire still found …

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Picture of a European wildcat

Photo of a wildcat by Melanie Kahl for the Wildkatzensymposium in der Fachhochschule, Erfurt

As this photograph was taken in what appears to be a German zoo, I will presume that it is a European wildcat. It as taken by Melanie Kahl of BUND Bundesverband for the BUND Wildkatzen-Symposium 2016. That is the Bund wildcat symposium. ‘Bund’ is a German wildlife conservation group, as I understand it. The …

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European wildcat in western Switzerland threatened by mating with domestic cats

European wildcat

We know that the Scottish wildcat is either extinct in the wild in Scotland or very nearly so because of long-term hybridisation with domestic and feral cats. These two species i.e. the wildcat and the domestic cat readily mate. It is the wildcat’s undoing in Europe and in Africa. And today, we are told …

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