If you let your house cat outside and think it stays near your house, think again. Recent research used GPS trackers to show the daily movement of domestic cats, and its results surprised their owners.

“When you speak to a lot of cat owners, they say: “Oh my cat just sleeps on the end of my bed, it doesn’t go anywhere,” senior land service officer Peter Evans said. Because of the cat GPS, it turns out some of them have “gone three kilometers from home.”

“I thought Semi particularly would be a lazy cat — bottom of the garden or next door’s yard,” one of the pet owners said. He was shocked when he saw the GPS map and learned that Semi was going into bushland and “over the hill and far away.” The owner is guessing that the cat is “looking for food, which is probably the primary thing because he’s usually around eight and a half kilos which [the vet says] is far, far too heavy.”

The cat tracker survey was carried out by The Central Tablelands LLS at Lithgow, in central-west New South Wales.

More info: centraltablelands.lls.nsw.gov.au (h/t: designyoutrust)

A lot of cat owners say: “Oh my cat just sleeps on the end of my bed, it doesn’t go anywhere”

Turns out some of the cats have “gone three kilometres from home”

“I thought Semi particularly would be just local — bottom of the garden or next door’s yard,” one of the pet owners said

He was shocked when he learned that Semi was going into bushland and “over the hill and far away”

“Looking for food… is probably the primary thing because he’s usually around eight and a half kilos which [the vet says] is far, far too heavy”