Can Responsible Ownership Practices Influence Hunting Behavior of Owned Cats?: Results from a Survey of Cat Owners in Chile.

Sebastián Escobar-Aguirre,Raúl A. Alegría-Morán,Javiera Calderón-Amor,Tamara A. Tadich

doi:10.3390/ani9100745

Abstract

Simple SummaryCats are popular pets, with increases in both the number of households that have cats and the number of cats per household. Cats can also have great negative impacts on wildlife. In Chile, the potential influence of owned cats on wildlife has not been studied, which is why the aim of this study was to investigate the number and type of prey that cats bring home and its relationship with responsible ownership practices. For this, we sent a questionnaire to pet owners across the country. The survey included questions about the type of household and pets, if cats had brought prey back home, and responsible ownership practices. The results showed that from 5216 respondents, 94.3% had a pet; from these, 49.9% had at least one cat. There were on average 2.2 cats per household, and 84.1% of owners reported that their cats had brought back prey. Birds and mammals were the most common type of prey, followed by insects. The lack of responsible ownership practices such as not being registered, not having a litter box, having free access to the outdoors, or living in a house with a garden and providing a hiding place increased the probability of cats bringing back home prey.The domestic cat (Felis catus) has become a worldwide threat to wildlife. The potential impact of owned cats on wildlife in Chile has not been documented at a large scale. The purpose of this study was to investigate the number and type of prey that owned cats bring back in Chile and its relation with responsible ownership practices. An online survey was distributed to 5216 households that included questions about the type of pet, responsible ownership practices, and in the case of cats, the type of prey they brought home. Descriptive statistics as well as univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were applied. The results showed that 94.3% of respondents had a pet, and from these, 49.9% had at least one cat. A total of 84.1% of owners reported that their cats had brought back prey. Birds were the most common type of prey, followed by mammals and insects. Not being registered with a microchip, not having a litter box, living in a house with access to a garden, not having a hiding place for the cats, and having free access to the outdoors significantly increased the odds of cats bringing back prey. Body condition score or providing ad libitum food to cats did not have an effect on bringing prey.

Highlights

There is historical and paleontological evidence suggesting that wildcats were domesticated as early as 10,000 years ago [1,2]
Section one asked for the demographic information of participants; the second section contained three questions to assess how informed owners were in relation to national legislation associated to animal welfare and the responsible ownership of pets; the third section addressed 11 management practices associated with cats and two questions regarding whether cats brought back prey and what type of prey
The Growth For Knowledge-Chile (GFK) study has a commercial objective and only contains information on whether households had a pet or not, the type of pet, macrozone, the amount of money spent on pets, if owners take them to the veterinarian, and if owners are interested in animal protection

Summary

Introduction

There is historical and paleontological evidence suggesting that wildcats were domesticated as early as 10,000 years ago [1,2]. Cats were domesticated and kept near the household because of their ability to hunt, and were kept as pest control agents [3]. There are around 600 million cats around the world [4], and many of them are considered as companion animals and family members [1,4,5]. In the USA, it is described that there are more than 74 million pet cats with an average of 2.1 cats per cat-owning household [4], while in the UK, it is estimated that 25% of the population has a cat [7]. In Chile, 36% of households have only dogs, 16% have cats and dogs, and 11% have only cats, with a total of 64% of households having at least one pet [8]

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