RESEARCH PAPER
GPS-based seasonal home ranges of neutered pet cats Felis catus along a habitat gradient
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1
Office Français de la Biodiversité, UMS Patrimoine Naturel OFB/MNHN/CNRS, 36 rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, CP41 75005 Paris, France
2
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, UMR CESCO MNHN/UPMC/CNRS, 43 rue Buffon, 75005 Paris, France
Online publication date: 2020-09-03
Corresponding author
Benoît Pisanu
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Office Français de la Biodiversité, UMS Patrimoine Naturel OFB/MNHN/CNRS, 36 rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, CP41 75005 Paris, France
Hystrix It. J. Mamm. 2020;31(2):105-109
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ABSTRACT
Understanding the habitat-related hunting behavior of house cats Felis catus is needed to evaluate their potential predatory effect on areas they actively visit within their home range. As part of a citizen science program, 30 neutered cats from 25 households were equipped by their owners during, on average, 2 consecutive days per month between January and November 2016 with a GPS programmed to acquire fixes at 1 to 5 min intervals. Nine cats were located in rural environments, 9 in suburban landscapes, and 12 in urban habitats. For 16 of these cats, preys brought home were recorded daily. Using the recursive distribution movement-based kernel density estimator, rural cats had the largest mean home range area (3.5±0.3 ha), followed by suburban (2.1±0.2 ha) and city cats (1.4±0.1 ha). Moreover, suburban cats enlarged their frequently visited areas in April-June, which corresponded to a peak in small bird preys brought home. Our results suggest that a more diversified landscape may drive domestic cats to increase their home range by benefiting from higher numbers of exploitable areas.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to all owners and their pets who participated in this study. Joseph Langridge (UMS Patimoine Naturel, OFB, CNRS, MNHN, Paris) kindly improved the English version of the ms. We also thanks two anonymous referees and Prof. Lucas A. Wauters for their insightful comments that improved our manuscript.