A Michael Broad Blog
Although some domestic tabby cats can be accomplished hunters, at their best they will be feeble compared to the black-footed cat which bears a close resemblance to their domesticated cousin. The similarity in appearance is remarkable as illustrated by the picture below. People complain about indoor/outdoor domestic cats killing wildlife. Fair enough. But in …
If you are up to scratch on your wild cat species, you might have heard of this trio. Two are small, about the size of a domestic cat, while the third is medium-sized. The video comes from San Diego Zoo. The lady who provides the voice-over has, I think, made quite a nice selection …
Despite the impressive reputation that this diminutive wild cat species has for its hunting prowess, high activity and fearless behaviour, it is not dangerous to humans in terms of causing serious harm for the simple reason that it is too small. To the best of my knowledge, there have been no serious attacks by …
Alex Sliwa is the go-to man on the hunting activities of this highly successful, small wild cat species. We are told that pretty well everything we know about this cat species comes from Alex Sliwa and his detailed observations. I’m picking out some of the salient points as I see them. We know, that …
The Fierce Black-footed cat – is it? Yes, it definitely is. I was casually reading the March/April 2010 edition of the Feline Conservation Federation magazine and happened upon the article of Robert Johnson about tracking the Black-footed cat. Yes, this article has been checked and republished 12 years later. He was speaking to Beryl …
This page was first written in 2009. I have decided to update it. It is now upgraded to the current date at the time of writing this namely 2022 (I have projected forward several days 😉). As the years roll by the distribution of this small wildcat species will shrink almost inevitably. The page …
The black-footed cat is arguably the best hunter of all the wild cats. They are incredibly active and highly successful hunters. They can make one hunting attempt every 30 minutes. Their success rate is 60%. A male was seen to catch 12 rodents in three and a half hours. During a normal night’s hunting …
The black-footed cat is Africa’s smallest cat. An adult weighs about 2 kilograms (4.4 lbs or about half the weight of the average domestic cat). It is one of the world’s smallest cat species (the rusty-spotted cat is probably smaller). At first appearance this diminutive cat looks like a slightly exotic domestic tabby cat. …
