27 Facts About Feral cats

Feral cats cat or a stray cat is an unowned domestic cat that lives outdoors and avoids human contact: it does not allow itself to be handled or touched, and usually remains hidden from humans.

Feral cats are devastating to wildlife, and conservation biologists consider them to be one of the worst invasive species on Earth.

Some terms are used to refer to stray cats, although stray and feral cats are generally considered to be different by rescuers, veterinarians, and researchers.

Animal rescuers and veterinarians consider cats to be feral when they had not had much human contact particularly before eight weeks of age, avoid humans, and prefer to escape rather than attack a human.

Feral cats are distinguished from domesticated cats based on their levels of socialization, ownership, and confinement, and on the amount of fear of, interaction with, and dependence upon humans.

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Australian government categorizes cats who have no interaction with or assistance from humans as feral, and unowned cats who rely on humans as semi-feral or stray.

Female farm Feral cats show allomothering behaviour; they use communal nests and take care of kittens of other colony members.

Domestic Feral cats have been members of ship crews since the beginning of commercial navigation.

Scientists do not agree on whether Feral cats were domesticated in Ancient Egypt or introduced there after domestication.

Since then, Feral cats continued to be introduced to new countries, often by sailors or settlers.

Some behaviors of feral cats are commonly observed, although there is disagreement among veterinarians, rescuers and researchers on the prevalence of some.

Some colonies are organized in more complex structures, such as relative hierarchies, where social status of individual Feral cats varies, depending on location, time of day, or the activity the Feral cats are engaged in, particularly feeding and mating.

Feral cats are either mesopredators or apex predators in local ecosystems.

African feral cats have been observed directly pilfering milk from the elephant seal's teat.

Feral cats are prey of feral dogs, dingoes, coyotes, caracals and birds of prey.

In Florida, a study of feral cats admitted to a trap-neuter-return program concluded that "euthanasia for debilitated cats for humane reasons is rarely necessary".

The body condition of feral cats entering a TNR program in Florida was described as "generally lean but not emaciated".

However, many feral cats had suffered from parasites such as fleas and ear mites before entering TNR programs.

Feral cats are controlled or managed by various agencies to manage disease, for the protection of native wildlife and to protect their welfare.

Control of feral cats can be managed through trapping and euthanasia or other forms of lethal control, or, some claim, through trap-neuter-return .

Literature reviews have found that, in the instances where studies documented TNR colonies that declined in population, those declines were being driven primarily by substantial percentages of colony Feral cats being permanently removed from colonies by some combination of re-homing and euthanasia on an ongoing basis.

Effectiveness of both trap-and-euthanise and TNR programmes is largely dependent upon controlling immigration of Feral cats into cleared or controlled areas; where immigration of new Feral cats is controlled both techniques can be effective.

The usefulness of TNR is disputed by some scientists and conservation specialists, who argue that TNR is only concerned with cat welfare and ignores the ongoing damage caused by feeding outdoor populations of neutered Feral cats, including the depredation of wildlife, transmission of diseases, and the accumulation of cat faeces in the environment.

Feral cats have had a major impact on these native species and have played a leading role in the endangerment and extinction of many species.

In systems where wildlife is threatened by both predation by rats and Feral cats, there are concerns that controlling Feral cats could increase predation by rats, due to rat populations increasing.

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Feral cats have interbred with wildcats to various extents throughout the world, the first reported case occurring more than 200 years ago.

Pure Scottish wildFeral cats are unlikely to exist, but the current wildcat population is distinct enough from domestic Feral cats to be worth protecting.