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Food habits and ranging behaviour of a group of farm cats (Felis catus) in a Swiss mountainous area

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2001

J.-M. Weber  and
L. Dailly
J.-M. Weber
Affiliation:
Institute de Zoologie, Emile-Argand 11, 2007 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
L. Dailly
Affiliation:
Institute de Zoologie, Emile-Argand 11, 2007 Neuchâtel, Switzerland
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Abstract

Domestic cats (Felis catus) living in rural areas – hereafter named ‘farm cats’ (Liberg & Sandell, 1988) – show a highly variable degree of dependence on man (Macdonald, 1991). They generally benefit from human presence by getting household food and shelter for resting and reproduction (Niewold, 1986). Nevertheless, despite regular food provisioning by man and as long as their movements are not controlled by their ‘owner’, most farm cats remain active hunters and still feed to a variable extent on wild prey, particularly lagomorphs, rodents and birds (Goldschmidt-Rothschild & Lüps, 1976; Liberg, 1984; Carss, 1995, amongst others), having sometimes a significant impact on prey species (Fitzgerald, 1988).

Type
Brief Report
Information
Journal of Zoology , Volume 245 , Issue 2 , June 1998 , pp. 234 - 237
Copyright
© 1998 The Zoological Society of London

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