Pet cats in Cape Town walk up to 18km a day, spending a lot of time in the Table Mountain National Park, according to GPS tracking devices.
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Their average range is 3ha in summer but this shrinks to around 1ha during winter, most likely as a result of the City’s cold and wet season.
This is according to scientists who previously reported that pet cats in the Mother City kill about 27.5 million animals on an annual basis.
Studies have shown that each of the City’s 300 000 pet cats kills between 59 and 123 animals a year and the researchers believe that this “massive toll” means there should be a 600m buffer zone on Cape Town’s urban edge.
Researchers say homeowners should be prohibited from having cats within this area unless the pets are confined to purpose-built outdoor patios, known as “catios”.
“Keeping cats indoors, particularly in summer, limiting their roaming with catios and adding bells and bright ruffs on collars can also reduce predation on native prey,” they say in peer-reviewed journal Animals.
The first of its kind involving pet cats in Africa, the GPS-tracking study used miniature 22g devices, attached to the collar of 14 cats for 10 days in the summer along with nine cats over a week-long period in winter.
Half of the cats were classified as “urban” due to the fact that their homes were surrounded by roads and houses and more than 150m away from natural areas.
The others were “urban edge” pets that had easy access to the national park.
The warmer months saw the cats cover an average of 11.8km a day and about half this distance during winter. The record was 18.1km set by an urban male cat.
The average distance from home was 528m in summer and 184m in winter. The maximum of 849m was recorded by an urban edge female with urban edge cats averaging 588m from home.
“Given that cats exact a massive toll on native animals, mitigation measures to protect biodiversity in protected areas are essential,” say the six scientists, lead by Robery Simmons from the Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology at the University of Cape Town (UCT), Justin O’Riain from UCT’s Institute for Communities and Wildlife in Africa and Colleen Seymour from the South African National Biodiversity Institute’s Kirstenbosch Research Centre.
An earlier study attached 32g KittyCams to their participants and proved that 90% of cats’ hunting takes place at night while less than 20% of prey are taken home.
“In other words, it’s not surprising that most cat owners have no idea of the impact that their animals have on wildlife,” says Simmons.
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