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Comment by dillydogg | Hacker News Reader

I know you specifically asked about rats but domestic cats are killing machines.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23360987/

We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.4-3.7 billion birds and 6.9-20.7 billion mammals annually.

This. Domestic cats are some of the most specialized killing machines in nature. Everything is raw murder machine. Massive muscle to weight ratio, optimized for extreme agility. 30mph top speed blows the doors off nearly anything it may encounter in nature. Tail allows for balance while running. Able to jump multiple times its own height. Able to fall a multiple of it's jump height. 20 built-in claws also act as tools to assist in movement and extreme climbing ability. Bite force enables additional attack vectors. Night vision. Ability to track small objects. Insane paw-eye coordination. Cats (big and small) are best predator.

All to sleep on your lap.

Edit: Also did I mention their incredible sense of smell and their built-in instinct to hide their tracks? Every. Single. Detail. Murder.

Also absurdly fast reaction time means even a snake is not a threat.

I’ve read that they also attack reptiles in a way that exploits a reptilian weakness, which is their greatly reduced (relative to mammals) capacity for dealing with lactic acid buildup. They goad snakes, etc into repeated dramatic movements which causes their muscles to quickly saturate with lactic acid, greatly reducing their mobility.

>Cats (big and small) are best predator.

And yet it is illegal for humans to hunt lions, but not for lions to hunt human (though unwise in the extreme).

You're welcome to explain the concept of a legal system to a lion, if you think it would work.

I think the fact that they are generally well fed and well cared for compared to wild animals makes a big difference as well

The fact that we feed them breaks their equilibrium with their prey. Normally a predator starts running out of food as it wipes out its prey, but not domestic cats. And not just pets, we also feed the ferals.

Except the chonky ones, who would only stares back at you.

They also evolved in the wild as prey. This helps explain why they like bunkers like cardboard boxes.

But think about it. If you were constantly on the alert as both predator and prey, you'd be pretty nutso too.

> Able to fall a multiple of its jump height

My understanding is that it's higher than their terminal velocity, which makes any height fairly low risk. They can be expected to survive falling out of an airplane, for example.

Edit 2: Did I mention absolute stealth and, in some breeds, camouflage?

Direct registering walking, too (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8riT_b8xbxg). Whiskers to feel air currents, sense prey close to their face, and estimate the dimension of holes. Swiveling ears to precisely locate faint scurrying sounds. Raspy tongues to hold prey. 200-degree visual fields with crazy-good motion detection.

I love my cats, but I often think about how utterly terrifying they'd be if I were prey-sized. (I.e., Adjusting for scales, I'd probably rather take my chances with a Xenomorph than a good mouser domestic cat.)

The ultra-high upper frequency limit of their hearing also allows them to detect the hypersonic communications of mice, which is why they always seem to know where one is. Dogs cannot hear this high.

You made the sale.

You missed a crucial bit of the abstract (my emphasis):

> We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.4-3.7 billion birds and 6.9-20.7 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality.

From the text of the paper, "majority" means 69% for birds and 89% for mammals. Feral cats kill a lot of animals, because that's what they eat. Pet cats do not. "Domestic cat" here means F. catus, not cats that live in homes.

Also, i wouldn't attach complete confidence to this paper. Firstly, it was written by bird conservationists, who have a dog in this fight (as it were). Secondly, it contains some dubious numbers (eg bird return rate per owned cat per year of 4.2 - 18.3 in US and Europe studies - and yet my mum's cats all brought in 0 - 1 per year). I'm not saying ignore it, but don't treat it as gospel - and it would be great to see responses to it, and other work on this subject.

The last cat I had that was allowed to go outside was a fearsome mouser, delighted in toying with them and was quite the biology teacher, showing off their inner anatomy to us kids.

However, birds mercilessly teased him as he had no clue how to catch one, surrounding him while he lay on the grass, chirping, then flying just far enough away when he'd move towards them.

A neighbors cat was being harassed by a bird once. It would dive bomb the cat then fly away quickly. It did this multiple times while I watched. The cat got tired of it after a while and stood perfectly still. The bird swooped down toward it and, just as it was close enough, the cat leapt in the air twisting its body upside down mid leap and grabbed the bird from the air. It was the first time I saw how a normal cat could be such an effective natural killer.

Isn’t this more of an example of “suicide by cat”? My cat gets dive bombed by crows occasionally but I think they are mostly playing on both sides…

Seagulls hang in the air at the Helsinki market square, opportunistically snatching french fries and ice cream and such from tourists. It has occurred to me that any person as focused as that cat could lunge and grab one of these winged vermin out of the air. I myself would not try it because I'd be afraid of losing an eye to a panicking bird with a quite long beak.

Not quite sure I understand the point you're trying to make, because getting back to the original question, though, "Are modern cats even that good at killing rats anymore?" - the answer is yes, absolutely.

There is no real genetic difference, as a total population, between feral cats and cats owned as pets. Absolutely, as you point out, owned cats who know they'll get fed inside will murder outdoor animals just for fun, and they don't need to eat them to survive - but that's a learned behavior, nothing they were bred for. You take a normal tabby and leave it to have its litter outside, unowned, and those cats will turn into feral cats.

Many animal rescue organizations have developed "Barn cat programs" for feral cats. These cats have not been socialized to be around humans so they make bad pets, but they're happy to live in a barn and ensure it says rat-free: https://www.austinpetsalive.org/programs/barn-cat-program.

A wild cat would have parasites, a few still healing wounds, one eye and one of it's legs has bones did not heal quite straight. This is a cat that "naturally" hunts mice and birds. Compare that to a suburbian cat which is healthy, well fed and it's biggest health risk is obesity

That's my porch cat, Sable. She just showed up one day and made herself at home. Real sweet cat. I've taken her to the vet a few times for bad wounds.

Was on the porch the other night and saw her take a 15 foot dump out of a tree with a rat ( big one too). She landed on top and made short work of the rat. She's an excellent ratter.

I hope you meant jump.

I mean. It was not elegant.

And thabk god they do, or we'd have our grain silos eaten bare in weeks.

No, I'm not joking.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-57698822

Yeah, there's a HUGE difference in behavior between a house cat that gets all of its meals every day at home, and one that has to go out hunting for at least some of its food. The laziness of an indoor cat is a learned behavior.

In most urban environs I'd assume they're mostly killing off vermin (big win) and urban birds like pigeons and seagulls, so it's like: What, Me Worry?

They don't make 'em like they used to.

Obligatory Oatmeal comic: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/cats_actually_kill

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