JWM study: Domestic cat attacks cause variety of wildlife deaths

[Cara J]

Cats are a favorite household pet, and sometimes people want to let them outside for some fresh air. But recent research shows that it’s not just mice and rats that domestic cats are hunting and attacking when their owners let them outdoors, but other wildlife as well. As part of a new study published in the Journal of Wildlife Management, researchers completed an 11-year retrospective study in which they looked at the admission rates of wildlife at the Wildlife Center of Virginia that resulted from cat attacks, the largest wildlife rehabilitation center in the state. “We do see a lot of cat-caught wildlife admissions throughout the year, especially in the spring,” said lead author of the study and the director of veterinary services at the center, Dave McRuer. “It’s not uncommon to have multiple wildlife victims coming in from cat attacks every single day. We’ve recognized subjectively that animals don’t make it despite a high quality of veterinary care for the animals that were received.” However, there is very little published work from the wildlife rehabilitation community looking at the extent of these cat attacks on wildlife even though there are currently between 50 and 140 million free roaming cats [...]

 

Read more: http://wildlife.org/jwm-study-domestic-cat-attacks-cause-variety-of-wildlife-deaths/