This month, I’m going to tell you about a quirky research project conducted by Hannah Lockwood of the University of Derby. The project’s formal title was ‘The impact of predation by domestic cats (Felis catus) on British wildlife populations’ – though I prefer its subtitle of ‘Look What The Cat Dragged In’.
Hannah set up this project in 2018 to provide data for her PhD thesis, calling for cat guardians in the UK to sign up their cats. The only stipulation she made was that the cat spent some time outside the house. Anyone who answered the call was asked to register their cat with details – age, gender, neutered or not and did the cat wear a belled collar – and to fill in a monthly questionnaire recording what prey the cat brought home. Five hundred and fifty-three cats took part, and a small number of these wore a collar-mounted camera to provide better information on the prey that were not brought all the way home.
We had a research cat in one of our pens
At least one of our clients contributed to this project. Her cats stayed with us for six days in 2021, during which time one of them caught and killed mice in her pen on two successive nights. We are located in a rural part of Braintree, in woodland on the outskirts of Sible Hedingham, so it’s no surprise that some brave mice venture into our cattery occasionally. Bad luck for those two mice that they found their way into the pen occupied by Genie, whose hunting exploits had been filling questionnaire sheets for several months. Genie’s human asked for details of the prey so that she could record them for the survey. She had been taking photos of Genie’s victims to send to Hannah, so that she could check the species and size of prey taken.
The results
Hannah presented her preliminary results at The Wildlife Information Centre Conference in 2021, speaking to the conference on a Zoom call (bribing her pet dog with treats to keep him quiet while she spoke!) By then, she’d established that the amount of prey taken was directly related to the season and the number of hours that the cat spent outside, with the most successful hunting taking place in summer. The cats were bringing in mainly small mammals (83% of all prey) with some birds (16%) and very few reptiles and amphibians (1%). Most cats who try to eat a frog or toad soon realise how ill this makes them feel and they tend to leave the frogs alone after that. Cats aged between four and nine years old tended to bring home more prey per cat than other age groups, but even the sedate and elderly recorded their fair share of hunting trophies. Thinner cats brought home more prey than their chunkier counterparts… as a hint to their humans to dish out more cat food? Or were the tubbier cats not as able to keep up with fleeing mice and swift birds?
Hannah’s final data shows that the majority of pet cats are casual hunters, bringing home an average of seven unfortunate mice or birds each year – unlike the tabloid headlines that portray cats as ruthless serial killers. Though she did record a few ‘super predators’ who filled those diary sheets with up to 61 prey each month.
If your cat’s a hunter…
Looking at Hannah’s results, there’s a few things you could try to stop your cat from bringing you little wildlife gifts;
- Feed the cat a little extra if they are naturally very thin (I’m sure you’d do this in any case).
- Don’t worry if your cat refuses to wear a belled collar – it doesn’t appear to make any difference.
- Restrict their outdoor time – especially keeping them in around dusk, when most birds are less alert.
- Tell yourself; “They’ll grow out of it…” because the older cats did tend to give up their safari habits.
Doctor Lockwood!
Hannah is now Doctor Lockwood, having graduated from Derby earlier this year. Her research has gone a long way towards finding the domestic cat innocent of making any dent in the British wildlife populations – who are used to evading similar (and more effective) wild predators. I wish her every success in her career and thank her for making us laugh with the project’s subtitle!
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