'Cat Tracker' study reveals the secret wanderings of 900 house cats

[FfFfFfFF 58,413]

The goal of the massive international Cat Tracker project was simple: find out where pet cats go when they’re outside.

After six years, the results are in. Published in the journal Animal Conservation, a new report the Cat Tracker team compiled data across continents to find that for most cats, there’s no place like home.

“I was surprised at how little these cats moved,” says lead author Roland Kays of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. “Most of them spent all their time within 100 meters of their yard.”

Katniss Everdeen—a long-haired, blue-eyed, year-old cat from Durham, North Carolina—was a typical participant. Like most cats in the study, she mainly stayed around her house and in the forested lot behind it. She did, however, make several visits to the apartment complexes on both sides of the house, and crossed the two-lane road in front of her house three times. Once she walked more than 150 yards to an industrial parking lot.

The record-setter was Penny, a young female from the suburbs of Wellington, New Zealand, who roamed over the hills behind her house, covering an area greater than three square miles.

“I am unaware of any studies that have examined the spatial ecology of this many individual domestic cats, or any domesticated species for that matter,” says Michael Cove, a cat expert at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.

Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/03/cat-tracker-shows-where-pets-go/

[CyanLights 15,576]

@FATCAT bout to be tagged 

[FATCAT 60,896]

I feel like my privacy had been totally destroyed. It doesn't matter how many times I wandered to the TwinkCat's house. Smh

[FfFfFfFF 58,413]

What @Miaou is doing when he is not streaming Always Remember Us This Way. 

[Miaou 39,013]

8 minutes ago, FfFfFfFF said:

What @Miaou is doing when he is not streaming Always Remember Us This Way. 

I can't, this isn't true I'm streaming ARTUW even when I'm pooping 

ARTUW is the light of my life and this cat expert will have to deal with it 

 

 

[Guest]

Because they know it's where they got more chance to get food

[Enchanting 166]

If they're house cats then why are they wandering outside? 

[RAMROD 117,348]

2 minutes ago, Enchanting said:

If they're house cats then why are they wandering outside? 

Cats are independent, adventurous, and curious animal. Also, cats are relatively new to domestication. Usually, wandering is related to hunting and territorial instincts. Cats wants to hunt and find new terrain. This could keep them away for days. Sometimes, very sadly, cats don’t return home. Or find new owner instead. If they are happier somewhere else, or at another home, where they feels more relaxed and content, so they will gravitates towards that area, there’s not much you can do to stop him/her from roaming over there. Those jokes about you don't choose your cat, but the cat choose you instead holds true due to this fact.

[SharkmanthaC 115,081]

My cats are indoor cats.  They're too lazy to go outside (and I'm too scared to let them).  One of my cats will try to open the door to go outside when I take the dog out.  She's scared me many times wandering out the door.  Usually she finds a spot in the sun to lay in and just stays there and I take her back inside.

[Fangwares 50]

I’ve seen my cat at least a mile away from my house once. It worried me