Domestic cats much prefer mice to birds no matter what source of information you refer to (including personal obesrvations by the cat owning public). In order to assess what, at a fundamental level, domestic cats prefer as prey animals you have to go back to their wild ancestor which is the African-Asian wildcat, otherwise …
Domestic cats are already adapting to modern human living but what about the long term future, the 22nd and 23rd centuries? Cats are more sociable than they were when first domesticated some 9,500 to perhaps even 14,500 years ago. However, they are a cat’s whisker away from their wild cat ancestor in terms of …
Yes, domestic cats can and sometimes do kill rabbits. A rabbit falls under the classification of lagomorph (hares, rabbits and pikas). Predation by domestic cats on lagomorphs is more commonplace on the young of the species. The secondary question, therefore, is whether domestic cats kill rabbits of the same size as the cat. The …
Should I keep my cat in at night? This is a very often quoted question. There are millions of answers. It’s useful to ask why a domestic cat should be kept at night. Are they good reasons and is the decision sound? Wildlife Clearly, a lot of people think that domestic cats do most …
It’s currently in the online newspapers (e.g. The Independent), namely that domestic cats kill more prey in a given area than similar-sized wild predators. This is according to research. The researchers agree that most of the predation is carried out within quite a small area around the home of their human guardian. The study …
This is another study, this time written up on the National Geographic website, which debunks the myth about feral cats having a cataclysmically destructive impact on America’s birds. It is a myth which ornithologists disseminate relentlessly. Clearly feral and outdoor domestic cats do prey on birds but the numbers that are quoted are guesstimates …
I believe that this display is in a Dutch museum: the Natural History Museum Rotterdam. It is unpleasant. It also over-simplifies the issues of domestic cat predation and as a result misleads. All-in-all not a clever display. The creators of this display probably had the intention of summarising the predation of birds by domestic …
Jason Gilchrist writing in The Converstion.com cannot comprehend why, in Britain, it is illegal to release grey squirrels into the wild while domestic cats are allowed to roam freely. Both cause damage to wildlife, he says, but the damage done by cats is far greater than that done by grey squirrels. Gilchrist says that …
