Differentiating between wildcat, stray cat and domestic cat in New Zealand

The British Ecological Society says in an article that there have been long-standing conservation efforts to restore the native wildcat in Britain and New Zealand. They've got that wrong completely because there has never been a wildcat presence in New Zealand. And the same applies to Australia. Both these countries have never had a wildcat.

You can't go around shooting feral cats in New Zealand because you don't know for sure if they are feral cats and unowned. This image is by Michael.

The only cats that they have are domestic cats, stray cats and feral cats. And the feral cat cannot be described as a wildcat. They are two different creatures/species. That's because the feral cat ultimately is a domestic cat that is unsocialised. Feral cats can be socialised to become domestic cats with patience. And feral kittens can quite easily be socialised to be domestic cats.

But the true wildcat, a wild cat species cannot be socialised. They might be tamed to a certain extent but they will never be a good pet.

But the title to this article hints at one problem namely this: New Zealand wants to cull i.e. kill all the feral cats in their country because they prey on native species. This is the same attitude as that of the Australian authorities. They have the same problem and they have the same solution: mass killing of feral cats.

But here is the rub on that project. You can't distinguish between domestic, stray and feral cats at a distance. They all look very similar. You can't shoot at a feral cat to cull the animal inhumanely because you might be shooting someone's pet cat. You might be shooting a stray cat which is in between a feral cat than a domestic cat in terms of socialisation.

Although some stray cats are fully socialised. They might have been someone's pet until the day before. So, the shooter might shoot a domestic cat or a stray cat but not a feral cat. You see the problem.

If you want to go around taking pot shots of feral cats which I find disgusting you have to make sure that all the domestic cats are, by law, full-time indoor cats. And that situation would have to be in place for a reasonable time so that you can declare to the world that every cat you see on the streets or in the countryside is not owned and are feral cats. 

You can then be safe to shoot them without being prosecuted for a crime under the nation's animal welfare laws. Or being sued by the cat's owner.

This problem and the solution is exactly the same in Australia. And the same would apply to poisoning cats with a device which chucks poison gel over the animal when it walks passed the device.

The conclusion is you can't go around willy-nilly killing feral cats unless you know that you are actually killing a feral cat and you can't do that currently in New Zealand.

And of course, it is immoral, inhumane, cruel and entirely wrong to shoot feral cats because you don't like them and because they kill native species for the simple reason that humankind put the feral cat there in the first place. They are the victims of human carelessness. To shoot them is to add to the problem. It compounds the problem and makes the human doubly wrong.

TNR is not perfect but it makes a lot of feral cats healthy and happy!

Trap-neuter-release (TNR) is, as I am sure you are aware, a very common method for helping feral cats to live decent lives. It helps to prevent the procreation of more feral cats and the procedure includes vaccinating the cats and checking their health. They are cared for by happy volunteers, usually women, who get to know their cats and love them. The whole process is positive.

TNR volunteers do wonderful work and they should be praised as society has an obligation to care for feral cats because they shouldn't be there. This picture is in the public domain.

Detractors

Detractors of TNR say that it simply puts feral cats back into the urban environment. Detractors want the cats removed and euthanised or killed in any way possible. They want this because they want to protect native species and wildlife generally as the cats prey upon them. And they want rid of the cats because they think they present a health hazard to people. They don't but that's the perception by detractors.

And detractors also state that TNR will not solve the feral cat problem. That's because TNR takes too long and it is not practised widely enough to have a huge impact upon the feral cat population.

Benefits

But there are some wonderful benefits. Firstly, TNR stabilises the population of a feral cat colony. So, in a certain area it does improve the environment for local residents. The residents can know that the feral cats are being cared for and that their numbers are being stabilised. In fact, eventually, if TNR is practised on a feral cat colony for long enough the numbers can be reduced to zero. Although, what often happens, is that more human carelessness produces more unwanted cats who become feral cats and they then end up joining the colony managed by TNR volunteers. It is the good guys, the TNR volunteers, mopping up the mess made by the bad guys, the careless cat owners. Or bad people dump their domestic cats at feral cat colonies. Horrible behavior.

In addition, many residents who are not volunteers will still be pleased that the cats are being cared for. TNR improves the general ambience of an environment where there are feral cats.

So, there are great advantages to local residents. And the advantages of course extend to the cats. The charity Best Friends tells us that "TNR ensures the cats' health and welfare. Once these cats are sterilised and vaccinated, they can live healthy, happy lives in their communities, where caring residents look after them."

Promoting misconceptions

A lot of people promote the idea - and I will have to include PETA in this group - that feral cats live miserable, short lives and are inevitably badly diseased. This simply isn't true. Of course, feral cats are more likely to pick up a disease similar to those picked up by domestic cats and when they are not cared for, they are going to die of those diseases sometimes.

But under TNR programs many feral cats live lives as good as those enjoyed by domestic cats. The volunteers provide winter shelter for them and they are of course fed regularly. If society is careless enough to allow feral cats to exist which is what happens then society has an obligation to care for those cats. On a moral level TNR works. In fact, TNR is essential if humankind is to behave ethically towards feral cats which are a symptom of careless domestic cat ownership.

There should be no detractors of TNR. It is something that society has to do. It is not done enough but the volunteers who do participate in these TNR programs need all the praise that they can get because they deserve a huge pat on the back for the work they do. They do it almost silently in the background. They are often unnoticed.

Attacks

Sometimes ugly people attack them and there have even been fatal outcomes of altercations between TNR volunteers and an unpleasant resident who doesn't want them there. That's because feral cats provoke a lot of polarised arguments. A lot of people hate them but I have to state that these are ignorant people who don't look deeper into the issue. To be clear, people have an obligation to care for feral cats.

Police

Remarkably, in America, sometimes the police get involved and they stop TNR volunteers from carrying out their duties. This happened on public land not too long ago. A couple of old ladies were even prosecuted for aggravated trespass. The story was extraordinary. Eventually the old ladies got off because the whole process was ridiculous. But the police facilitated it to their ignorance. Often the police struggled to behave properly in respect of feral dogs and feral cats. To me dogs, for instance, are shot by the police in America for no reason at all other than perhaps that the police are frightened of dogs.

TNR helps these cats live decent lives. Let's be thankful to the volunteers who make this happen.

Why do feral cats not meow? Can a feral cat meow?

I will answer the second question first. Feral cats have the physical ability and anatomy to meow just like domestic and stray cats. The point is that they don't normally meow because the meow vocalisation is a learned one between domestic cat and human caregiver. It is normally a demand for food or attention.

The answer is not quite as clean as that because the meow sound is very variable. People should not think that every meow made by every cat is exactly the same. There is a great spectrum of meow sounds. 

The word 'meow' is an onomatopoeia meaning that it reflects the sound. But as the meow sound varies a lot it does not reflect the meow sound sometimes!

The meow sound has been learned by the domestic cat to make a demand on their human caregiver. Image: MikeB

As to the first part of the title, as mentioned, this is a learned vocalisation by domestic cats over about 10,000 years of domestication. It is a sound developed between cat and human. 

As feral cats nearly always or almost exclusively 'talk' to other feral cats there is no need for them to meow.

The feral cat might hiss and growl at a human but they won't normally meow at them. 

But if you have the patience to socialise a feral cat which might take many months even as long as 18 months if they are an adult feral cat who's lived their entire life in the urban jungle, they will eventually learn to meow at their human caregiver.

It is a learned process and a demand normally. However, it's meaning will vary as the sound's tone and tenor varies.

It may merge into other sounds like a growl. The Siamese cat has a honk to make demands rather than the classic meow. As I said the meow sound varies 😎.

Here's a video of a very strange meow sound but it is certainly a demand. A call for attention.

Phoenix Day School for the Deaf have a feral cat problem and they are dealing with it properly

NEWS AND COMMENT: This is a good cat new story in my book. It's straightforward and the outcome is going to be good. And that is because the people who are dealing with the problem are sensible and enlightened.

Feral cat near the school. Photo: 3TV/CBS 5.

In the past several months a feral cat problem has developed at Phoenix Day School for the Deaf. A colony has emerged at the school which has been supported by local residents who been feeding them next to the fence that borders the school. Because of this they been roaming onto the campus at 19th Avenue between Hayward and Morton Avenue.

The problem for Maria Murphy at the school is that they sometimes defecate on the campus. She says they bury it but it's not something they want for obvious reasons on campus.

The good news element of this story is that they decided to work together and employ TNR practices to control the colony. In addition, they are giving instructions to feed the cats for a set period of time daily. They've TNRed 17 already.

Felicity Short has set up a fundraising page to purchase traps and to set up veterinary appointments to get the cat spayed and neutered.

There are useful spin-offs for this kind of activity. You get people together. They work together. They meet each other. You have a community spirit. And you work with the cats to make their lives better but you stop them procreating. It's good for people to do something good for animal welfare. It's good for the collective consciousness.

A lot of people denigrate TNR. These are the anti-feral cat brigade. They want to eliminate them but TNR is so much better when carried out properly. There shouldn't be a discussion about it. Humans put the cats there because of their carelessness and therefore they have a duty to treat them humanely and with decency. It is humankind's mess to clear up.

Cassidy Porter-Whistman, founder of Barn House Rescue AZ hints at the fact that it should be a community effort when she said:

"It takes a village when you have a colony this size and they problem this size, it takes a little bit of a different approach."

They are teaming up with Felicity Short to run a TNR program. And they're going to educate the feeders to maintain the colony but not allow it to grow. The problem with feeding feral cats is that you create a food source. Colonies form around a food source. Also, you attract wildlife. Therefore it needs to be done in a controlled way. This, I think, is what they are alluding to when they say that they are going to educate feeders.

Porter-Whistman said that feral cat feeders tend to over-feed. She advises not to free feed but to feed at a specific time of day I presume in a controlled manner.

She is going to attend the location to educate the area about TNR. 😊 I like that.

She said:

We actually go out and try to educate the entire neighborhood, ask them who's feeding, if anyone's feeding, tell them about the project and then we trap every single night for three to five days until no cats come back to the feeding station. Unless we can stabilize those colonies one colony at a time in that targeted way, we literally would do this for the rest of our lives and never catch up to how many cats there are. They outnumber us, significantly."

A resident makes a good point which is that the cats do serve a purpose in keeping down the rodent population. She said: "You see the same cats around, there are no new cats obviously and it's all about balance because you do need some of them around--I mean, I don't see any mice or rats or other annoying things."

Outdoorsy rescue cats are harder to find a home for than more sociable cats

NEWS AND COMMENT - UK: The RSPCA in the UK has appealed for people who have suitable facilities to rehome outdoorsy cats to mark International Cat Date this week. The sort of place they're considering for these cats, who prefer to be outside because of their background are: riding stables, smallholdings and farms. There are other options too provided the environment allows the rehomed cat to live predominantly outside while being cared for to the same standard as an indoor cat which means providing food, water, shelter and veterinary care when needed.

Experienced barn cats Butters and Grayson. Photo in public domain.

Alice Potter, RSPCA's cat welfare expert, said that cats have a wide variety of personalities and they try and match the personality to the environment in which they place a cat. Their spectrum of rescue cats ranges from the inveterate lap cat through the inbetweener cats who are less likely to sit on a person's lap and who doesn't like to be picked up all the way through to the community cat and feral cat who are happy to live independently from humans but who are ultimately reliant upon humans.

This huge variation in personality probably primarily comes about because of early experiences. Some of their cats have lived for a long time as strays and of course you can rehome feral cats provided they are already semi-domesticated. They can make ideal barn cats on farms. Some domestic cats inherit a desire to live outside but they are relatively rare.

It is unsurprising that the RSPCA find it difficult to rehome these outdoor-loving cat because most adopters want a house cat, which today can often mean a full-time indoor cat, the sort of environment that would be anathema to a feral cat.

The RSPCA say that there is a lack of awareness from the general public about these outdoor-loving cats. The general view of the domestic cat is the one that curls up in front of the fire or sits on your lap keeping you company. However, a lot of cats have never had that luxury and therefore their personality is attuned to a different lifestyle. They're still dependent on human support as mentioned.

What can happen sometimes, in my opinion, is that outdoorsy cats can come inside eventually as they become older. This happens for at least two reasons. Firstly, they become more sensitive to the harsher life of living outside when they're older and want the comforts of indoors. Secondly, in interacting with a person who might own, for example, a smallholding they become more domesticated to people and learn to integrate with the human lifestyle.

In other words, many of these cats are under-socialised which leads to the possibility that they can be socialised when rehomed with a person who is sensitive to those needs. It is the kind of process that can take a number of years but with great rewards for both parties.

The report comes from the Shropshire Star newspaper. Plus, my occasional thoughts.

Woman in China wants to make a coat for a cold stray cat

This is a picture of a woman in China who is measuring up a stray cat for a coat. The picture you see was taken on the night of October 25 in the city of Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province which is in northern China. We don’t know the name of the good Samaritan in the photograph. 

The woman was filmed apparently planning to make a coat for the white stray cat that you see. She appears to be putting some felt material on the cat's back. The still image is part of a video captured by a passing woman who was with her husband. They spoke to the woman and found out that she was looking after some stray dogs as well. It tells us that this there are people in China who are very concerned about animal welfare. Sometimes people in in the West forget this because we see animal cruelty perpetrated at the wet food markets or the cat and dog meat market in the south of China and of course we can't forget the industrial scale of the cat and dog fur market. China is the major exporter of cat and dog fur. The industry is known for its cruelty.

The gentleness and kindness of the woman in the photograph also reminds us that there are no general animal welfare laws in China even in the 21st-century. The cat you see in the photograph is not protected by a nationwide animal welfare law. Thousands of years without proper protection of animals under the law has resulted in, I would argue, a generally poor relationship between the citizens of that country and their animals. This is manifested in the above-mentioned businesses which are based on animal cruelty. I know it is politically incorrect to criticise another country either directly or by implication but it is impossible to avoid it. 

 

Let's just say that this woman is an individual who is concerned about animal welfare and let's say that the government of China is not concerned about animal welfare. There is a disconnect between some citizens of the country and the government. But everyone says that there is a huge pressing need for the Chinese government to introduce animal welfare legislation ASAP in order to bring the country into the 21st century with respect to the relationship between the citizens and animals.

Working Cats

Let's restore a greater percentage of semi-feral cats to their rightful place in society: the working cat. Wasn't that meant to be what they were at the beginning, when first domesticated?

Not all feral cats run a mile at the sight of people. There is a wide spectrum of types of feral cat and some are quite domesticated but live outside. For instance, there is a lady in the UK who looks after "allotment cats" (allotments in the UK are gardens in a different place to where you live). These are semi-feral cats.

Cats Protection in the UK ask people to contact them if they know of cats that would suit the working cat environment such as farms, stables, smallholdings etc.

In America, the Arizona Humane Society have a page on their website where they say cats will work for mice. I like that. They ask people to give them their stray and feral cats. They say there is a waiting list of potential homes for working-cat candidates. I presume this to mean there are more people seeking working cats than there are available cats.

Arizona Humane Society provides a great start up pack to a person who'd like a working cats (applicants for cats have to take a minimum of cats).

The Society supplies:

• an enclosure
• food
• bedding
• and litter box and litter to get you started.

They make the good point that working cats are an environmentally friendly form of pest control. The benefits are enormous. The lives of two cats are saved and there is no need to put down poisons to control pests, plus you have the fun of looking after a cat which will probably be friendly as well as able to live semi-wild.

There may be some difficulties with relocating cats  but if those risks are outweighed by the benefits I believe and these sorts of programs also raise the profile of feral cats in the eyes of others. We need that because too many people see feral cats as pests. 

The Feral Cats Of Israel

One thing is for sure: there are a lot of feral and stray cats in Israel. I have been there and seen them first hand. The picture at the top of the page is of feral cats in Tel Aviv. In that city there is one feral cat for every person. They live a harsh life but people like to feed them and as you can see in the photograph the cats like to procreate. 20,000 cats and kittens are received by shelters every year in the Tel Aviv region alone.

Apparently, in the 1980s the idea of neutering feral cats came about but before that stray and feral cat population control was somewhat cruder; poisoning on masse, which brings to mind the treatment dished out to feral cats in Greece after the holiday season. Apparently, strychnine was used to poison the cats of Israel.

Population control by poisoning is now illegal. The Israeli Supreme Court ruled against the poisoning of cats in June 2004. Trap-neuter-return is now the norm and it seems that the Israelis have taken this well-known process of feral cat control to new heights.

They are doing something that I have argued for, for a long-time and which should or could happen in the United States of America.

 In late 2013 Israeli Minister of agriculture and rural development committed about US$1.27 million to the sterilisation of 45,000 feral cats by the end of May 2014. Central government is providing subsidies to each municipality on a matching bases to help them with their trap-neuter-return programs.

The Israeli government has realised that there is a need to manage feral and stray cats and are doing the right thing in operating trap-neuter-return programs which are acknowledged to be the most humane way to manage these unfortunate cats who live hard and short lives and which present a health hazard to people, it is believed.

I would suggest that this TNR program is the largest of its kind in the world. The Israeli government's attitude towards feral cats is in line with their ban on the declawing of cats. Israel is one of many advanced countries in which declawing is banned. That said, by the way, I would expect very few Israelis to want to declaw their cat.

Photo of Alley Cats in Heat - feral feline sex in Tel Aviv by David Shankbone on Flickr (if you don't see the picture it has been pulled by David on Flickr.

Dominant Cat Picture and Info

Dominance hierarchies or subordinance hierarchies are formed to avoid or mediate aggression between cats due to competition for resources in groups of cats. Cats form groups and become social animals when there is a suitable food source. Group living has benefits. Mates are on hand. The downside is that competition is close by too. Hierarchies help to keep the peace in groups.

Competition for food for feral cats and even for litter boxes for the domestic cat are sources of aggression between cats. Dominant cats in a hierarchy can control a subordinate's access to the food source. Sometimes higher ranking cats may threaten lower ranked cats for no immediate reason or hog the food source while not utilising it.

A subordinate cat gives way to a dominant cat based on past experiences of interaction. You will only get simple linear hierarchies in small groups of five or less and they are rare. Large groups of cats have complex partially linear hierarchies¹, which can also change.

Published under a creative commons license.

What are the signs of a cat showing subordination to a cat that shows dominance? Subordinate cats:

• walk around dominant cats;
• wait for the dominant cat to pass before moving into an area;
• back off when when the dominant cat approaches;
• avoid eye contact;
• show a hunched, crouched posture;
• roll onto their back
• stick their tails 'to either side of their thigh'¹
• turn their ears down and back.

The dominant cat shows the following signs and behaviors:

• block subordinate cat movements;
• bat at the subordinate with their paws;
• chase the subordinate and sometimes mount the subordinate cat;
• hold ears up and rotated them to the side;
• arch the base of the tail;
• stare at the subordinate cat;
• when encountering the subordinate cat: hind legs are extended and stiff with base of tail elevated and ears stiff and erect and rotated laterally while staring at cat.

Dominance displays are toned down between cats that get on in groups.  Dominant cats can make life stressful for subordinate cats. In well balanced hierarchies there are rarely fights. Where there is an unresolved dispute as to who is dominant they might fight over the matter. What elese!? Regarding the photo on this page, red or ginger cats tend to be leader cats based on information that I receive.

Source: 1. The Welfare of Cats ISBN 978-1-4020-6143-1 - excellent book by the way.

Mediterranean Cats

Mediterranean cats are often white, short haired, slender, with Van-type markings and sometimes they have odd-eye color because of the presence of the while spotting or piebald gene. The medical term is heterochromia iridum.

Having looked at a lot of cat pictures, the above description is quite typical of Mediterranean cats. I am thinking mainly of the Greek Islands and surrounding areas. That is not to say that a lot of other coat types can't be seen as well. You will see a wide range. It is just that this type is fairly typical. You'll see Van-type cats in Morocco too.

Mediterranean cat - Odd eyed cat - photo by ihasb33r (Flickr)

The above picture is a slightly cleaned up version of the original that was taken on Greece as far as I can tell. It is a nice picture, particularly when cleaned up a bit (my personal opinion). That's why I picked it and thanks to the photographer for the license to publish here.

For me the look is so typical of Mediterranean cats. Quite delicate in appearance and size. That is probably due to the heat. Warmer climates tend to produce smaller cats and colder climates produce larger cats (the Sumatran and Siberian tigers are examples).

The genes that have caused the coat are the same as those that produce the Turkish Van pattern in neighboring Turkey. No surprise there as the countries are adjacent to one another. The picture perfect version of the van pattern is an inverted black "V" shape on the forehead and over the eyes and a black tail.

This little cat has a vestige of that. Blue eyes are due to a lack of pigmentation that was removed by the same gene that removes the pigmentation in the fur - the piebald gene. It is the same gene that produces the painted or piebald horse.

Greek cats are not treated that well it appears. A new cat breed is being created in Cyprus. Also you might like to read about the spread of the various cat breeds from the original source.

Cats Social Learning

The well known video of a cat copying boxers on television is an example of cat social learning through observation in the domestic human environment. The experts in the video don't mention this and don't make comment on why this is happening.

Cats are first class observational learners. Young cats learn from watching mother and preferably other relatives. They can learn skills that were not used by ancestors; in other words entirely new skills by copying (Chester 1969 and other studies). The classic cases of observational learning are kittens and cubs going out with mom on their first hunting trips. Before that the mother (the queen) brings dead prey back to the den or nest. The next stage is to bring back live prey at about 4 weeks of age for feral cats. When live prey is released in the den the mother catches the prey and thereby shows her offspring how it is done.

The kittens practice what they have learned under mother's supervision. In studies it was found that kittens are more receptive to socialization to humans and other animals when mother is present, thus verifying the importance of her role in kittens learning new skills.

As mentioned, relatives of kittens play a role too and father cats play their part in teaching and protecting offspring.

Group hunting of larger than normal prey by feral cats can take place, it seems.  The kill is shared. It is surmised that this is a learned skill through observation.

Feral Egyptian Mau in Kuwait

cat-on-rocks-2, a photo by octal on Flickr.

Is this an Egyptian Mau stray cat at a Kuwaiti dock?

This cat looks very like the feral Egyptian Maus that you you in Egypt on the streets. There they are persecuted but in the USA they are selectively breed to look amazing.

This cat has a distinct wild cat appearance with the prominent spots and leg banding. It reminds me of the African wild cat actually. The cat is rangy, slender etc.

It seems to be quite plausible that there are domestic and feral cats in the Middle East that are descendants of the African wild cat.

One well known informal purebred wild cat hybrid is the Bahraini Dilmun.

Via Flickr:
Cat walking across rocks on kuwaiti marina

When a Stray Cat Comes to You

What to do when a stray cat comes up to your home? Or there is a cat wandering around in your area and you feel that it is stray. A lot of people take what only can be described as hostile action, against the cat, for example, kill it by poison or kick it etc. (see cat poison). In fact there is a post on this blog made a day or two ago in which the person said she loved cats but puts down poison to deal with stray cats! See Stray Cats.


I have lost the credit for this photo. I think it could be MAR please advise - sorry

But the question is what is the thing that we should do? The proper thing throwing out all other considerations? If the cat is tame it is probably a stray cat as opposed to a feral cat. And in that case it probably lives with someone - but who? And if you can't find out, then what?

One way to find out is to ask around the neighbours. This might seem troublesome to many people who don't care about cats or animals generally. Fair enough but it is the right action to take. Another way to try and find the owner is to place a collar on the cat in which the question as to who is the owner is asked with your contact details provided. You can see an example here.

If the owner (keeper) comes forward you should try and convince them to act more responsibly and I realize that that is going to be all but impossible but at least you know who the person is and can deal with the matter in a better way if things get worse.

Another way to try and find the owner is to contact the local shelters (in the UK - here is a list). Once all reasonable steps have been taken (and ideally recorded) but without success, you can move on to the next stage, which is to rehome the cat. That means deciding whether ownership should pass to you (a very serious commitment for the remainder of the life of the cat) or whether the cat should be rehomed by a local shelter.

Provided you have done all you reasonably could have done to find the owner no one can accuse you of theft. If the cat is feral and therefore wild there can only be one course of action, which is to support the cat (which is effectively wild), while ensuring the cat cannot reproduce. This is called trap, neuter, return and it is probably best left to the experts, provided the experts are simply just not going to kill it after a couple of days at the shelter.

When a stray cat comes to you, you should take the above action provided you are convinced the cat is stray. What I did was to take in the stray cat. He is called Timmy (middle picture above) and he is possibly a time share cat because he lives somewhere else as well as at my place. I took the hardest step and that has to be for life.

When a Stray Cat Comes to You to Home Page (main site)

Australians are Hostile to Stray Cats

Why do I get the distinct impression that Australians are hostile to stray cats? I mean Australians as a nation not individual Australians lots of whom are very much for, and care for, the stray and feral cats. And lets not forget that stray cats are quite possibly domestic companion cats that are simply outdoors. All over the internet are stories of stray cats in Australia being ill treated.

There seems to be a kind of culture that approaches that found in China with respect to the stray cat or indeed feral cat. This culture seems to have been promoted or even generated by a long term and on-going campaign by government officials who have claimed that the poor maligned stray cats and feral cats of Australia are responsible for the death of millions of native wild animals. A reality check indicates that this is not the case. Here are a few facts that come from a very reliable source, Sarah Hartwell (unless otherwise stated), who was assisted by http://www.catassist.org.au:

• there are pro and anti feral and stray cat camps. I sense that the anti camp is winning because of government backing (my view)
  
• there are no accurate figures on the numbers of stray cats and feral cats in Australia. This fuels guesswork and alarmist assessments. The figure is, apparently, between 3 and 30 million.
  
• an influential survey carried out in 1994 by Dr David Paton claimed that cats kill 3.8 billion animals and birds annually. A vast number. But this survey, which may be etched in the minds of some Australians, has been found to be lacking in objectivity (Dr. Paton disliked cats) and accuracy. It is, in short, misleading. More birds are killed by cars than cats in Australia (survey result not guesswork).
• another study of 1994 (by Reark research for Petcare Information and Advisory Service) confirmed that cats preferred hunting introduced wild species (rabbit and mouse) rather than native Australian species thus debunking the claim that precious native species are being slaughtered by cats.
  
• habitat destruction by people is probably the biggest killer of native Australian wildife (my view)
• it seems that a considerable percentage of vets are also against the feral and stray cat. Witness the case of Possum who was shot 27 times and the owner couldn't find a vet to assist until after 4 tries a kind a decent vet did assist. (see Worst Case of Cat Cruelty) -this is my view and not Sarah Hartwells.
  
• Ms Hartwell supports my view that wholesale shooting of feral cats is inhumane and it doesn't work either. (see Ground Shooting of Feral Cats and the Vacuum Effect). She also supports proper, humane and organised action using TNR techniques. The Australians seem incapable of accepting this. It isn't, it seems, in their nature as it would take a long term approach and a concerted approach.
  
• all the signs are that, generally, as an electorate, Australians are hostile to Stray cats.
  

Some selected posts on this topic:

• Feral Cats of Australia
• Australian Feral Cat Laws
• Savannah Cat Ban in Australia in Wrong
• Feral Cats

From Australians are Hostile to Stray Cats to Home Page

Difference between Stray and Feral Cat

Feral cat - a boy cat and it shows - photo by Wabana

The difference between stray and feral cat is that the stray cat is a domesticated cat that has strayed from its home. The cat is at the first stage of being feral. It is pre-feral. Its offspring will be feral if they are born outside of a permanent human home, meaning on the street or in the woods etc. Feral cats are domestic cats that are evolving back to wildcats but they are ill equipped to survive outside the human environment because of thousands of years of domestication.

The feral cat's life is considerably shorter than a domestic cat's life and a permanent indoor cat's life is potentially the longest of all because it is the most protected (but stress brought on by the unnatural environment may reduce lifespan).

The feral cat might live 3 years, while the domestic cat should live 15+ although purebreds live shorter on average (say 11). The true wildcat will live a decent length of time, say 11 years or so because despite the harsher lifestyle they are well able to cope.

Feral cats are often quite a mess health wise, being caught up in territorial fights and getting ill. Domestic cats are protected from this and receive medical care (usually). See damaged cat ears. I feed two stray cats and my companion cat was a stray. The 2 cats that I feed are quite well but one, the male gets hurt in fights requiring veterinary treatment because his injuries turn to abscesses.



Photo:

Feral Cats of Los Angeles

The feral cats of Los Angeles. There are one million. There are about 60 million feral cats in the United States. About 2.2 million feral cats (some say 14 million) are euthanized each year in the USA. Thee are about 80 million domestic cats in homes in the USA. Most of these live decent lives but they are cancelled out by the tough, short and sometimes miserable lives of the feral cats. Is this going to be the outcome for the forseeable future of the arrangement we made with the wildcat 9,000 years ago when the cat domesticated him/herself? At that time it worked. Can we claim that, overall, domestication of the cat actually works based on the above figures? I am not sure.



Update: A colleague of mine, Valley Girl (VG), has made a nice post about how people dump unwanted companion animals at Angeles National Forest. This apparently happens infrequently but VG makes the good point as to what that means. Does it mean one incident every week or more? Any dumping of pet like this is irresponsible. The "owners" of these cats and dogs (and rabbits) think that the animals will survive by reverting to the wild but this is not true. Domestic cats are conditioned and adapted to be domestic and find it hard to survive in the wild but will no doubt do so for a period of time. This is a cruel practice, though. Companion animals are for the life of the animal and we should not enter into an agreement to adapt a cat, say, unless we are totally committed to long term care. Here is VG's post:

Angeles National Forest Dumping Ground for Unwanted Animals

Cat Fights of Male Cats

Timmy's damaged nose. I'll show a picture of his wound next post.

The cat fights of male cats can be heard at night around here. For territorial reasons male cats get into cat fights. This shows how close to the wild dometic cats still are. Obviously a cat has to be an outdoor cat to get into fights although it might happen indoors too. Only indoor cats living with other cats are so close together they will have adapted to the lack of territory and come to accept it - i.e. no cat fights for territory in the conventional sense.

Timmy, the stray cat I feed, keep warm, rest up and generally care for when I can, gets into cat fights. There is nothing I can do about it as he is not mine. Well there is something I probably will have to do about it (see below). After the last fight he got sratched. He had small cuts all over his head and shoulders etc. and on his nose (see picture). I discovered late in the day what appeared to be a fairly innocuous scratch on the top of his head. This over a period of a day or so developed into a lump and off to the vet we had to go as it was almost certainly an infected wound, which turned out to be the case.

He was very well behaved throughout the journey and the minor operation to drain the puss from his wound (there was quite a lot of it). He was given a pain killer and anti-imflammatory and antibiotics. I have to give him an antibiotic pill daily and wash his open wound with salt water daily. The wound is left open for more rapid healing but I am worried about this because he sratches it. What can I do? He just comes and goes.

One last point. I asked the vet to confirm that Timmy is "whole" -- not neutered. And she confirmed this. So the next thing to do it to have him fixed, I guess. This is not something I want to do but we owe it to cats generally to do this as there are too many abandoned cats and Timmy could make more of them! The cat fights of male cats are normal but I wish they could apply a bit of commonsense. Some animals balance the benefits and downside to their actions.

The Cheetah will not fight for her prey that is being stolen by other large predators because if she gets hurt she will lose her speed and that is her main weapon of survival.

Update next day 20th Feb 2009: No sign of Timmy today, yet. He left our home yesterday after the visit to the vet. He ate well and as I said, he left. I couldn't keep him in. I tried but cats have well developed habits and his is to go home, wherever that may be. I am worried for him. He may be a time share cat, sharing accommodation with another person's home. If he is the other person has a bl**dy smelly home because Timmy always comes in smelling. Anyway, that person, if he exists, may keep him in as Timmy now has a noticeable wound on his head that needs to be aired but he needs antobiotics regularly. I am concerned that if he doesn't get them he will become seriously ill. We'll just have to wait and see. - further update about 8 hours later - he turned up, ate well, I washed his wound with salt water and gave him an antibiotic pill and them he left! I love him. This is the wound one day after the vet's treatment.


Timmy's puncture wound after treatment.

Timmy had a cat abscess - see what this means and how it is treated.

Are cats solitary animals?

Photo - Reproduced under creative commons - credit: Tidwater Muse (Flickr)

It seems that a lot of people think that cats are solitary, selfish and will do as they please and are a bit aloof etc. I just don't see this.

First, it is worth remembering that cats domesticated themselves 9,500 years ago. In other words they liked what they could get out of a relationship with us and decided to hang around. That's pretty much what we do human to human when we form relationships and humans categorically need humans. It is very hard to live alone.

Then most cats accept and get along with visitors to the home. Mine actually runs for the nearest hiding place but that's because she's scared (bad start in life as a stray cat). Cats see us as large cats and get on well with us. It indicates a great degree of social adaptability. Would you live with another animal that was as high as a small block of flats and feel comfortable?

If things go wrong in the relationship it is usually us who caused it as cats react to situations and don't take unilateral steps to achieve something.

There was a story not so long ago of a cat that lived in an old peoples home and when the person was going to die he would sit with them. True story.

Under certain circumstances cats will adopt and nuture another cat's kittens demonstrating a high degree of altruism in comparison to a lot of humans.

Feral cats are a particular example of groups of cats living together. Groups of feral cats are a common sight. I can remember going on a holiday in Italy and staying at a good hotel. There were at least 20 feral cats outside the window. One of the cats was blind and he smelt his way to the food. When it got cold one cat would sit on the other; good teamwork.

When you throw food to a group of feral cats you don't get a mass fight; you get a calm queue forming British style :-) More signs of sociability and co-operation amongst cats.

The cat is adaptable. Given a chance and more space he may become more solitary but he is able to adapt.

One other factor; we keep cats as kittens by mothering them all their lives. Kittens are mentally more playful with other creatures and accepting, which facilitates a more sociable approach.

My Binnie Do

The cat that currently lives with me is actually called Judds. Weird name really. It is short for Judders. Also a weird name (it's after her tail that "judders" when she is excited). She was a stray, a lost soul on the streets of London. Since 2002 I have called her Binnie. Don't really know why. Except she is like a dustbin. Maybe it came from that. I have fought her for 14 years on the matter of her diet and lost on every occasion. She taught me persistence.

Back to the story. At the time I was living in London (Notting Hill Gate, before it became really fashionable). This was about 1993. Binnie was under a car sheltering when I came home from work.

She looked up at me nervously. She is still nervous. She must have had a bad start. Anyway, as I say on the home page of my website, my favorite cat is a homeless cat looking at me and asking for help. Just can't resist.

So, I feed her with the left overs from our (I was married then) two cats. She gulped it all down. She went back to her damp little hiding place around the corner. I think the person who cared for her abandoned her.

As is the case she eventually came round and stayed. I thought she was pregnant. Then I realized it was food!. I was feeding and she was eating. We couldn't really take her in permanently so I talked to my neighbor. She thought Binnie was pregnant!

Well there you are. 14 years later and she is still my loyal companion. She was upset when I lost Missie, my other cat. I still grieve for Missie.

I moved out of London after the divorce in 1994 and now am back in Barnes another fashionable place. And guess what - Timmy another stray just walked in....I love him to bits.