Hunting behaviour in domestic cats: An exploratory study of risk and responsibility among cat owners

By Sarah L. Crowley, M. Cecchetti, R. Mcdonald. People and Nature, 2019

88 citations recorded by the source corpus.

1. The potential impact of domestic cats on wildlife is the subject of growing inter‐ national interest and concern. While feral cats are often the primary focus of re‐ search and debate, in many societies a substantial proportion of domestic cats are owned by private individuals. We present a typology that classifies domestic cats in relation to varying degrees of human control over their reproduction, move‐ ment, and provisioning. Understanding the perceptions and practices of cat own‐ ers will be key to identifying and mitigating any negative ecological effects of cat hunting behaviour. 2. To investigate how cat owners perceive (a) their pets’ hunting behaviour, (b) their responsibilities for managing this, and (c) the mitigation strategies available, we conducted detailed interviews with a diverse sample of cat owners in the United Kingdom. 3. We identified a spectrum of views on hunting behaviour, from owners who per‐ ceived hunting as positive (for pest control, or as healthy cat behaviour) to those who were deeply concerned about its consequences for wild animals, their popu‐ lations, and welfare. However, hunting was widely understood as a normal, natural component of cat behaviour, and owners rarely perceived a strong individual re‐ sponsibility for preventing or reducing it. sheet explaining the topic of study and signed consent forms prior their Participants were informed they All and were analysed with the as‐ sistance of NVivo for Mac (v11). Following an initial read‐through, a single coder categorized sections of transcripts by response re‐ garding (a) perceptions of cat hunting behaviour; (b) perceptions of owner responsibility for hunting behaviour; and (c) views and ex‐ perience of possible mitigation measures. These groups were then further coded into thematic responses and interpreted in relation to the existing literature and wider discussion with owners. Coded identifiers are used here to protect participants’ identities.

Subfields: Ecology, Genetics, Geography, Planning and Development

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