Most people say that dog is a man’s best friend, but we do seem to love cats a whole lot. Go online and you’ll find out just how devoted we are to our feline friends. There are thousands of websites featuring cat pictures, cat jokes, cat videos and just overall fawning over kitties. Your Facebook newsfeed probably has a few regular cat pictures or videos posted to it. Go on Youtube, and there are countless videos featuring furry felines doing silly, or sometimes impressive, things. Recently, there was a viral video making the rounds showing a small child being attacked by a stray dog, when the family cat jumps in to rescue the boy, chasing off the dog.
Some rights reserved by Bogdan Suditu
Cats are common, cherished, and can be fiercely loyal pets. Unlike a dog, who might run away if let outside without a leash, cats are often allowed to roam in and out of the home as they please. For cat owners who let their cats play outside, they are quite familiar with the cat’s predatory instincts. Cats sometimes like to bring presents to their owners in the form of their freshly killed prey. Depending on the area you live, these presents could come in the form of bats, mice, rats, birds or other small prey. A cat of mine once dropped a piece of fried chicken on my bed.
Most of the time, these presents are gross and unwanted, but because our little hunters are so proud of themselves, we clean up the mess and probably don’t think too much else of it. But what these cat owners are seeing is a small piece of the impact that domestic cats have on urban wildlife. Cats are natural born hunters with a strong predatory instinct. They were actually originally domesticated by humans 9,000 years ago in order to help kill pests like insects and mice that were trying to eat the food storage. However, in present times, the abundance of cats in urban areas have many worried about the impact of local wildlife.
In a growing number of cities, it is becoming illegal to let your cat outside without a leash. Cats are still allowed as pets, but they must be kept inside the residence. They are basically treated like dogs, requiring a leash out in public. There are many justifications for the law, one being the high amount of stray cats in cities. Unfortunately, not all cat owners who let their cats wander can be trusted to spay or neuter their pet. Another huge motivation to ban outdoor cats is the high frequency of vehicle collisions involving, and often injuring or killing, cats. The other consideration is the concern for urban wildlife.
This might seem a little counter intuitive. Do we really want wildlife in our cities? For the most part, no. We are happy when cats kill rats and mice and spiders we don’t like. The concern is that the abundance of cats is throwing off the natural ecosystem. Small birds are often a target of domestic cats, and bigger birds and wildlife suffer as well, when there is less prey for them to live off of, especially considering that these cats are fed by their owners on a daily basis. In order to more accurately assess the impact domestic cats have on the environment, researchers are teaming up with the public to conduct a massive GPS tracking study.
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences wants to know where your cat goes when you let it out. Citizen scientists of North Carolina can sign up and learn more about the study at www.cats.yourwildlife.org. Cat owners who let their cats wander outside, who are interested in participating in the study, will buy a GPS tracking harness, which costs about $50. Once the harness is received, it should be attached to the cat. For about a week or so, let your cat go about its normal routine. After the week or so, you can detach the harness from your cat and connect the GPS device to your computer. The tracking data will show exactly where your cat went throughout the week, then send the data back to the Museum of Natural Sciences so it can be used for the research project.
Some preliminary studies have shown that most outside cats stay fairly local. They tend to have regular routes they follow around the neighborhood. Some cats, however, will surprise their owners and wander miles into the woods and return home in time for dinner. If you live in North Caroline, why not take part of this study and find out where your furry family member wanders off to? The more citizen scientists volunteer their cats for the research project, the better and more accurate the results of the study will be.
Citizen Scientists Study Domestic Cats with GPS Tracker
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