Is your kitty a born killer or just a klutz?
Country Notebook
READERS of yesterday’s WMN, in particular cat owners, will no doubt have made themselves familiar with the findings of a new study carried out by the University of Exeter.
Based on a 12-week trial of 355 cats in 219 South West households, the research shows that our feline friends hunt wildlife less if we – as owners – play with them daily and feed them a meat-rich food.
Introducing a premium food where proteins came from meat cut down the number of kills brought home by 36%, while just five to ten minutes of daily play with an owner resulted in a 25% reduction.
As a cat owner myself, it will come as no real surprise that I took up the story. In fact, the two photographs used were of cats who have prowled the Irons garden in years gone by. Not all of which were avid hunters.
As the researchers acknowledge, the effects of their study “vary between cats”. And certainly, from looking back at the cats who have shared my home, it’s clear that not every kitty is a bloodthirsty beast, dead set on clearing the bird table.
Rather, for every pair of kittens we’ve had, there’s always one that seems to step up to the hunting plate. Take Gypsy, for example, the tortoiseshell pictured in yesterday’s paper. For what she lacked in size, she made up for in attitude. Feisty and independent, she would often bring ‘presents’ (not always dead, either) into the house to proudly show us. I see an awful lot of her in one of our current kittens, Pixie, which is slightly concerning! Meanwhile Gypsy’s larger brother, Tigger, was the epitome of gormless. In almost every photo I have of him, he gives off the impression that there wasn’t a lot going on behind the eyes. And that was exactly right!
Whereas Gypsy knew how to stalk, Tigger would, just like his namesake, bound towards the bird table, making no effort whatsoever to conceal himself. Needless to say, his lifetime kill count was virtually non-existent.
The same pattern was repeated in our next two kittens, Kensa and Mia, also pictured yesterday. Sadly, Kensa (nearest the camera) didn’t get much of a chance to showcase any hunting ability she may have had, as she was hit by a car aged just over one, but Mia turned out to be the most prolific hunter I think we’ve ever had. For only a little lady, she would regularly come struggling back to the house with a rabbit of a similar size between her legs – one of which I remember bundling under my dressing gown and whisking off across our field to set free.
The most mind-boggling of Mia’s night-time catches, however, were a couple of bats. How she managed to pull that off, we’ll never know!