Extraterritorial hunting expeditions to intense fire scars by feral cats

Hugh W. McGregor; Sarah Legge; Menna E. Jones; Christopher N. Johnson

doi:10.1038/srep22559

Extraterritorial hunting expeditions to intense fire scars by feral cats

Hugh W. McGregor^*, Sarah Legge, Menna E. Jones, Christopher N. Johnson

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

95 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Feral cats are normally territorial in Australia's tropical savannahs, and hunt intensively with home-ranges only two to three kilometres across. Here we report that they also undertake expeditions of up to 12.5 km from their home ranges to hunt for short periods over recently burned areas. Cats are especially likely to travel to areas burned at high intensity, probably in response to vulnerability of prey soon after such fires. The movements of journeying cats are highly directed to specific destinations. We argue that the effect of this behaviour is to increase the aggregate impact of cats on vulnerable prey. This has profound implications for conservation, considering the ubiquity of feral cats and global trends of intensified fire regimes.

Original language	English
Article number	22559
Journal	Scientific Reports
Volume	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/srep22559
Publication status	Published - 2 Mar 2016
Externally published	Yes

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abstract = "Feral cats are normally territorial in Australia's tropical savannahs, and hunt intensively with home-ranges only two to three kilometres across. Here we report that they also undertake expeditions of up to 12.5 km from their home ranges to hunt for short periods over recently burned areas. Cats are especially likely to travel to areas burned at high intensity, probably in response to vulnerability of prey soon after such fires. The movements of journeying cats are highly directed to specific destinations. We argue that the effect of this behaviour is to increase the aggregate impact of cats on vulnerable prey. This has profound implications for conservation, considering the ubiquity of feral cats and global trends of intensified fire regimes.",

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Extraterritorial hunting expeditions to intense fire scars by feral cats

Abstract

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