National Geographic Remote Imaging

No owner would likely deny that cats are creatures with personality. Some spend all day stalking squirrels, some spend all day snoozing in the sun. Some like to cuddle, and some are loners.

Yet a lot of cats – particularly outdoor cats – have lives that their owners know nothing about. What kind of mischief does a cat get into when it wanders out into the neighborhood alone?

That was the question that Kerrie Anne Loyd, an ecologist who recently received her doctorate from the University of Georgia, and collaborators hoped to start answering when they began a pilot project using National Geographic Crittercams. They wanted to know how cats are affecting native wildlife like birds and rodents that share the cats’ environment.

Given that predatory cats are not native to the United States, “we have a large number of cats that could be hurting wildlife,” she said.

The researchers had cat owners in suburbs of Athens, Ga., put small video cameras (redubbed “kitty cams)” around their outdoor cats’ necks. The cameras recorded everything that 60 cats did during the day. At the end of the day, the owners took off the cameras, downloaded the video footage, and recharged the cameras for the next day’s use. Each cat’s outdoor activities were recorded for about a week.

The most surprising thing they found is that the majority of the house cats weren’t hunters, said Dr Loyd. Only 44 percent of the cats in the study stalked, chased or killed other animals during the day.



Among the cats that did hunt, the most popular prey was also surprising. “The birds were a minority of the prey items,” Dr Loyd said. The cats most commonly caught reptiles, something that other studies had missed because the cats either ate the reptiles or left them behind at the kill site.

“All the previous research on cat predation was counting what cats were bringing home,” Dr Loyd said.

There are many other reasons to keep cats inside besides harm to wildlife. “Cats are safer, wildlife is safer and communities are safer when cats are indoors,” said Katie Lisnik, the director of cat protection and policy for the Humane Society of the United States.

She said outdoor cats are in danger of being hit by cars, attacked by other animals or contracting diseases. The most humane way to care for cats, she said, is to keep them inside in a stimulating environment “so that they can express their natural behaviors.”

Other highlights from the kitty cams were of the stomach-turning variety: Cats were seen eating roadkill, climbing down into storm drains and lapping up sewer water, and eating insects like walking sticks and earthworms.

“Four of our cats were cheating on their owners” by visiting other people’s homes and receiving snuggles and food, Dr. Loyd added.

While the findings are interesting, Dr Loyd cautioned that the study was preliminary and has not been published or reviewed by other researchers. “We tested this tool,” she said. “It’s a great way to learn about cat behavior in the outdoors, and next we need to learn a lot more.”