Tuesday, July 7, 2009

What Happens When a Cat Meets a Coyote?

What happens when a cat meets a coyote?

Most of the time, it's lunch, according to The Journal of Wildlife Management which abstracts a new paper entitled: Observations of Coyote–Cat Interactions:

Coyotes (Canis latrans) pose a risk to domestic cats (Felis catus). We captured, radiocollared, and tracked 8 coyotes from November 2005 to February 2006 for 790 hours in Tucson, Arizona, USA. We observed 36 coyote–cat interactions; 19 resulted in coyotes killing cats. Most cats were killed in residential areas from 2200 hours to 0500 hours during the pup-rearing season. Single coyotes were as effective killing cats as were groups (>1) of coyotes. Documented cases of predators killing cats could encourage cat owners to keep their cats indoors and assist wildlife managers in addressing urban wildlife issues
.

No comments:

Post a Comment