Gent looking to prevent their outdoor cats from killing the local wildlife perhaps I would like to heed the findings of a new study published Thursday. That suggests that feeding the feline a meat-rich diet and playing with them regularly will help satiate their appetite to hunt.
Animal researchers in the UK sought help from 355 cats from 219 households in England for their experiment; cats were chosen specifically for their habit of bringing prey home. To provide a reasonable baseline, all cats were observed in their natural environment for seven weeks before the experiment began. Then, over a five-week period, most cats experienced several conditions that could affect their outdoor hunting behavior (a control group was left at their disposal all the time). These conditions included different diets, toys, and devices marketed specifically to keep cats away. taken, such as necklaces with bells glued or a vividly colored neck easily seen by the birds.
Compared with the control group and the initial behavior of the cats, the researchers found that several methods appeared to reduce wildlife hunting.
In cats that were given high quality, high-protein, low-fat, low-fat diets, for example, the number of animals brought home was reduced by 36%. In the playgroup, where owners played with their cats using feather rods and mouse-sized toys from five to ten minutes a day: the reduction was 25%. Brightly colored necklaces also reduced bird predation specifically by 42% but it had no effect on the hunting of other small animals. Cat bells had no significant effect, and puzzle feeders seemed to increase hunting for some reason.
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Although many commercial cat diets are high quality and high in protein, some plant diets may not have certain micronutrients that cats instinctively try to supplement with hunting. JoIt’s not exactly clear why the puzzle feeders have failed bad. The authors theorized that it is possible that cats ’inexperience with them frustrated them and made them more hungry at the same time.
Of course, the best One way to prevent cats from killing wildlife is to always keep them indoors. But some owners insist cats need a dose of outdoor activity to stay healthy there may be semi-wild cats that stand firm on living a double life. So for these situations, researchers hope their findings can at least help some homeowners find a comfortable midpoint.
“In the management of predation by domestic cats, owner behavior is as important as the behavior of cats, and therefore to reduce cat death, management strategies must be effective and implemented by cats. owners, “the authors wrote in their article, published in Current Biology. “Positive interventions, aimed at benefiting cats and attracting owners, can reduce the tendency of cats to hunt and can therefore form the basis of a conservation benefit.”
Researchers plan to investigate whether cat hunting can be further reduced by behavioral tricks, such as combining two or more methods. They also plan to study the nutrition of cats more closely, to see if they can identify the missing micronutrients that can be added to lessfleshy Diets.