ADELAIDE cat owners are being asked to spy on their pets and track their movements to reveal the secrets of where they go when nobody is watching.

The Cat Tracker science project from Discovery Circle at UniSA fits suburban moggies with GPS collars to record where they go over five days.

UniSA is conducting the research about cats, “to find out more about their behaviour and personalities, their relationship with their owners and, community attitudes about cats”.

Snowy from Prospect was the first cat tracked and owner Victoria Fielding was shocked by the results, because she was “100 per cent sure” the 15-year-old pet never left the property.

“She seems to have a secret life that we don’t know about,” she said.

“It looks like she is visiting some houses ... She’s not going far, but she is quite frequently going to lots of places within about half a hectare of our property.”

Mrs Fielding said she had never seen Snowy leave or return.

“I had absolutely no idea that she had ever left the yard before,” Mrs Fielding said.

“You just sort of get used to seeing the cat around the house, so I guess if she was gone I wouldn’t really wonder ‘where’s Snowy’ because I would just assume she was outside.

“I find it really interesting, owners think they know more than they really do about their cats.”

The first cat tracks now online are from seven cats and a control subject — a stuffed toy that doesn’t leave the office.

More cats are wanted, as the project has a target of 500 South Australian cats this year.

UniSA researcher Dr Philip Roetman said a large sample was needed before they could draw meaningful conclusions from the data.

“People are really interested and want to find out where their cats go,” he said.

“We want to look at the behaviour of domestic-owned cats, to see how far they go and where they go, so people can make informed decisions about how they manage their cats. We’re giving this information back to people to make those decisions.”

He said the first cat tracks showed there was some variation between animals.

“As we get more data in we can compare, young and old, neutered (desexed) or not and so on.”

Discovery Circle is collaborating with US researchers from Your Wildlife to bring Cat Tracker to South Australia.

The US project has a head start with more than 100 cats tracked to date. Dr Roetman said preliminary results suggests city cats tend to stay in built-up areas, rather than going into natural areas.

Schools can also get involved with teacher resources such as how to calculate a cat’s home-range.

People aged 16 and over can fill in the online survey, even if they don’t own a cat. At the end of the survey, there is an opportunity to volunteer a cat for free tracking.

Visit Cat Tracker for more information.