UK: 50 Cats under 24 Hour Surveillance

This is the BBC television program that I have referred to when discussing the typical home range of the British domestic cat. Update Dec 30th 2014: the BBC video has been deleted because of a copyright violation so I have substituted something very similar.

The cats wear a GPS (global positioning satellite) tracking device and video camera. They are all outside cats. The purpose is to find out what these outside/inside cats get up to when outside and at a time when the caretaker is not looking.

To be fair, it is quite instructive. Ruth (aka Kattaddorra) made a good point. She does not want to know in detail what her cats get up to when outside. It is their business.

They should have some privacy and be allowed to be themselves. I referred to this as being allowed to be their wild selves because when the domestic cat is outside, alone, they return to the wild cat roots. They can enter a world in which they are not dependent on humans for everything. That is good for them.

All we need to know is whether they are safe because that is our responsibility.

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Comments

UK: 50 Cats under 24 Hour Surveillance — 4 Comments

Rose on July 3, 2013 at 9:43 am said:
I like it that cats have always had an air of mystery.Why do some people have to poke and pry and want to know everything they do?In my opinion it’s that ownership thing,the need to control cats.
I’d never let any of mine have devices strapped on to be spied on.
Like Ruth says we have taken over enough of their world already.
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Ruth aka Kattaddorra on July 3, 2013 at 6:19 am said:
Living in a cat friendly place which is as safe as it can reasonably be anywhere for cats, we feel they have the right to their own private lives and the fulfilment and enjoyment of doing what cats like to do.
Cats need the chance to be wild, ours are very happy in that they have the best of both worlds, they love going out and they love coming home.
We are lucky to live here because there are places where cats can’t be allowed to have their freedom and I find that very sad because we humans are taking more and more of their world away from cats.
Where will it end?
I was reading yesterday that one day there will be NO animal life at all left on this earth because of the way humans have taken it over and the way we treat, use and abuse animal species.
I personally think that the human race will wipe itself out before that happens and the earth will return to how it was in the beginning.
I hope if the human race does evolve again, if/when that happens, that we are more compassionate and caring and much less selfish next time around.
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- Marc on July 3, 2013 at 12:45 pm said:
  You are so lucky Ruth and I agree with you philosophy of privacy. However living near a busy road I always wanted a live gps for Red ideally. If I had seen where he went I would have locked him up pretty quickly. I never thought he would go to the danger – but I think it happened in the night when it’s more quiet. It was a friday night though – I suspect fast lone driver going fast enough for Red to misjudge the speed and get hit.
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  - Ruth aka Kattaddorra on July 3, 2013 at 2:29 pm said:
    Yes we are very lucky Marc, but we’ve had our troubles, we got cat haters next door at our old home which Babz and I jointly owned and things got so bad we had to move because our cats couldn’t even go safely into our own garden.
    We decided to sell our house and move but things got so much worse we had to rent this house while trying to sell ours, we left it empty. It took almost a year to sell it because of those horrible neighbours and we had to just about give it away to be rid of it.
    We got into a lot of debt through all this but it was worth it because it’s so ideal here for our cats, different cats now, we had Ebony and Bryan then.
    When that man with 3 dogs moved next door here we thought our paradise was over again but it’s turned out OK, he’s a live and let live person like we are.
    But we are always on edge with it not being our own house, where would we go if our landlady decided to sell?
    We hope to stay here until Babz retires, but that’s 2019, so we just live for the day and enjoy it here and make the most of it.
    I feel so sad for you about losing Red that way, fate is cruel at times xx
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