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Cats

Cats Facts

Cats - or more specifically, house cats - are small furry felines that are known to be domesticated by humans for companionship. Generally speaking, there are three types of house cats: pets, stray cats and feral cats. Learn all you need to know about these three types of house cats, then explore cat control information by navigating the links below.

General cat facts

General Cat Facts

  • Scientific Name: Felis catus
  • Average Size: 8-12" tall; 12-24" long; 3-8 lbs.
  • Average Lifespan: 15 years domesticated; 2 years in the wild.
  • Identifying Features: Long tail; sharp teeth; retractable claws.

Cat Classification

Humans will classify a cat as either a pet cat, a stray cat or a feral cat, mainly based upon its socialization with humans. Although they all belong to the same species, each general group of cats can be distinguished by its learned habits and attitudes towards humans and other animals:

PET CATS
  • raised by humans from birth
  • live in the custody of humans
  • socialized and generally friendly toward humans
STRAY CATS
  • were once pet cats
  • live in the wild due to abandonment or getting lost
  • were once socialized, so may be approachable by humans
FERAL CATS
  • born and raised in the wild
  • have little to no human contact
  • live and reproduce near human populations; often times indirectly taken care of by humans

It's important for a human to understand these classifications - especially when attempting to take care of or control cats - as each group will respond differently to care and control methods.

Cat geography

Cat Geography

Due to their extreme adaptability, cats inhabit most of the world, including all continents except for Antarctica.

Cat Diet

Cats are carnivores and scavengers with opportunistic diets. While most domesticated cats eat store-bought cat food given to them by their caretakers, cats in the wild mostly dine on human scraps (garbage) and small animals. Cats in the wild prefer rodents, birds and amphibians under 100g in weight.

Aside from store-bought food, some favorite foods include:

Cat diet

Cat Behavior

  • Activity:The time at which cats are active depends on their environment. For example, many cats in the wild (feral) are most active at nighttime, while some pet cats may be more active during times when their owners are home and active.
  • Reproduction: Cats that have not been neutered or spayed will mate during any season, producing up to 20 kittens each year.
  • Social Interaction: Cats are generally solitary, territorial animals. Feral cats will often form loose colonies consisting of mostly females and kittens, but cats typically fend for themselves during adulthood. Cats communicate and navigate mostly through scent, rubbing and spraying to mark their territories. Domesticated cats are the only cats that are socially comfortable with humans.
  • Scent Marketing: Cats have scent glands all over their bodies - from their face to their paws and tails - which they use to communicate. For example, unfixed cats may spray, or "urine mark", on vertical surfaces to communicate their presence with other cats and mark the territory as their own.
  • Predation: Cats feed on small vertebrates and invertebrates. They're known to stalk animals when perched at a higher altitude and quickly pounce on them to attack. Feral cats in particular are very successful predators, keeping the population of pests like mice at a minimum.

Identify Cat Damage

Identify cat damage

Cat damage can resemble that of other garden pests, so the best way to identify whether you have a cat problem is to see the cat with your own eyes.

Signs of a cat or its destruction include:

  • tipped or raided trash cans
  • unearthed plants or crops with nearby cat feces (perhaps buried or semi-buried)
  • brown patches of grass killed by urination
  • yowling late at night
  • a pungent urine odor
  • scratched tree bark
  • cat tracks: paws about 1 square inch in size; three lobes toward the rear of each footpad; four toes on each paw; no visible claw marks.

Cat Disease

Cats are known carriers of several diseases, viruses, and parasites that are most only transmittable to other cats. Some illnesses they carry can be transmitted to humans - like toxoplasmosis - and these are transmitted via bodily fluids and feces. Feral cats are most at risk for disease, because they are rarely vaccinated - and this causes some fear in humans. However feral cats generally stay far away from human activity, and rarely is a person at risk of contracting these diseases from cats.

Illnesses that cats may transmit to other cats include:

  • feline leukemia virus
  • feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV)
  • feline distemper

Fun Facts

  • Within seven years, one single pair of unfixed cats and their offspring can produce up to 420,000 kittens.
  • Cats cannot taste sweet foods, due to a lack of sweet taste buds.
  • While cats can climb up trees face-first, they cannot climb down the same way, because their claws curve backwards.
  • A cat's range of hearing is about 3 times that of a human, which means cats have superior sound-detection skills.
  • Adult cats only meow at humans - not at other cats. Kittens meow at their mother to let them know when they are cold or hungry, but once they enter adulthood, they no longer meow at other cats.
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