Feral cats fail at urban rodent control (2018) | Hacker News Reader

Feral cats fail at urban rodent control (2018)

wildlife.org

17 pointsvector_spaces10 comments

Only a desperate cat would take on a rat. They're big and mean. Sure, the cat can kill the rat, but the chance of significant injury would be high. And in the wild a significant injury is often a death sentence.

The title really misleads -- cats can be great at urban mouse control. But for urban rat control you need something bigger.

The methodology is a bit biased, if you have a rat problem you get a farm cat to deal with it, you don't hope some half-starved possibly sick or injured feral happens to turn up and get rid of them.

My comment was written using personal experience with farm cats.

This study might be missing some long-term thinking and testing of common knowledge.

It is known among farmers that cats reduce rat PRESENCE. the study concludes that cats don’t kill enough rats to reduce rat POPULATIONS (which is entirely different). Rodent control is not about killing rodents it’s about keeping rodents away.

The hypothesis to test would be that rats avoid areas with cats because it makes their young less safe. (A cat discovering an unattended nest containing rat kits will certainly go badly for the rats). I’d like to see the total rat counts in the area of study before arrival of cats and after. I’d guess from what I’ve seen that the population counts would be wildly different than can be accounted for by cat kills.

The prevalence of humane people giving them cat chow destroys the food hunger incentive to hunt.

> cats must be hungry, have no less-risky food sources available and have the element of surprise on their side.

I am excited that researchers can reach these conclusions in 2018. This is certainly an excellent way to use grant money.

I've had neighbors who will occasionally leave out bowls of water or food. I've known people who took on responsibility for several cat colonies and had a "nightly feeding route" for them. But around here, once a colony is established, they do not seem to have trouble finding discarded food, or chasing bugs in the lawn.

>Cats typically prefer smaller meals of defenseless prey when available

I'm sure the authors are dog people, because their solution is remove cats rather than bigger cats. Dog people always seem to have an irrational hatred for cats.

Cats are not so much into submission.

Cats make certain people's opinions about consent quite clear.

Now killing birds on the other hand...

"Feral and free-ranging cats are the leading human-caused threat to birds in the United States, killing an estimated 1.3 to 4 billion birds annually." (Google)

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