There is a lot of talk nowadays about the killing of small mammals, marsupials and reptiles plus birds by unsupervised domestic cats outdoors, stray cats and feral cats. This topic highlights the biggest negative against domestic cat ownership currently on the agenda. Since 2005 there have been discussions about how to minimise the impact of …
Cat owners are unconcerned about wildlife predation by their cats Read More »
To rephrase the title, you might ask the following question: “Do well-fed domestic cats hunt as much and with the same conviction as cats that aren’t fed?” The best answer that I can find on this topic is from Dr. Jon Bradshaw in his book Cat Sense. He is far more nuanced in his response …
Does feeding a domestic cat blunt their desire to hunt? Read More »
In the modern world, as the pampered domestic cat is provided with wet cat food from pouches or dry cat food from bags, you rarely see them engaging in their own ‘food preparation’ so I’ll describe it here if I may. The point is that domestic cats are in effect scavengers, a behavioural trait which …
‘Food preparation’ for easy swallowing by domestic cats is rarely seen Read More »
The New Zealand website stuff.co.nz quite often publishes articles about cats and they are all negative. The basic MO is to get rid of them because their native species are being gobbled up by the evil devils. I get it but it is a bit OTT to an outsider. The Kiwis and Aussies are far …
New Zealand is banning cats from new communities. Thin end of the wedge? Read More »
The reason why the domestic cat’s wildcat ancestor maintains a home range i.e. a section of landscape that they call home, is because they want to protect a food resource. This makes sense. It’s about survival. The domestic cat, in a typical home where they are well looked after, has a ready-made food source. Technically …
Why do domestic cats still wish to maintain a home range? Read More »
Indoor/outdoor cats do not need to patrol their territory in order to find food when they are well fed. But domestic cats still, instinctively, patrol their ‘home range’ (the area they call home). Domestic cats are attached to their territory as much as they are attached to their human caregiver. It’s about habits and what …
Feeding your cat well should reduce the area over which they patrol Read More »
I think that this is important. I have been digging around because I know that journalists writing for respected websites including news media website often distort the facts. They make claims and hard statements which simply are not true. They quote scientific reports but in doing so they actually misquote them. This is a very …
We know that most domestic cats are “moggies” i.e., non-purebred cats. They been created through natural selection whereas purebred cats are created through artificial selection a.k.a. selective breeding. We also know that domestic cats are wonderful predators. It is their raison d’être. They are built to hunt and kill. It is a problem for humankind. …
We need to selectively breed moggies to reduce predation Read More »
Polish scientists at the Polish Academy of Sciences have decided to place the domestic cat on the database of invasive species in Poland. The domestic cat is, indeed, an invasive species in Poland as it is in the UK and the USA, for example. But these other countries don’t OFFICIALLY recognise that fact because the …
Poland puts domestic cat on invasive species database Read More »
There is a product on the market called Birdsbesafe®. They are fluffy cat collars in very bright colours. They are deliberately bright because songbirds see bright colours especially well. You can immediately understand the idea. The cat stalks a bird. The movement of his collar is picked up by the bird. The bird flies away. …
NEWS AND COMMENT-SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: The first point to make is that although huntsman spiders use venom to immobilise prey and can reach up to 5 inches across, based upon my careful research they do not cause harm to domestic cats who kill them and perhaps sometimes devour them. If a cat devours a huntsman spider …
Cat owner relies on her two cats to kill venomous huntsman spiders (video) Read More »
Usually, the discussion about protecting wildlife from predation by domestic cats is binary: either you confine them to the home or you allow them to be free-roaming. A lot of people think domestic cat should be allowed to roam freely in the interests of their cat’s health. People generally prioritise their cat companion’s health over …
Targeted domestic cat confinement a better solution to protecting wildlife Read More »
There are 3 reasons why domestic cats apparently torture their prey by playing with them. I list and discuss them here. It is a form of feline behaviour which at best irritates their human caregiver and at worst disgusts them. It does, however, provide the cat’s owner with an opportunity to save the mouse. That …
3 reasons why cats play with their prey, apparently torturing them Read More »
When a cat eats a bird, it will sometimes pluck the bird’s feathers beforehand. That, though, is a simplistic statement because it seems that it is more complicated than that. The same or very similar methods are employed by both domestic and wild cats. This is no surprise because a domestic cat behaves like a …
You can buy the book Cat Wars by Peter Marra and Chris Santella on Amazon. They describe cats as “environmental contaminants like DDT”. They claim that they spread disease and disrupt the ecological balance of the environment. They have a chapter lewdly entitled “Zombie Makers”. They describe how domestic, stray and feral cats spread rabies, …
