Domestic Cats Research Paper

Words: 756
Pages: 4

Felis silvestris lybica, the Wildcat, better known as the feral house cat, is an invasive species. The cats originated in the Fertile Crescent, where it began to domesticate itself, resulting in the species shrinking (only slightly) in size, developing multiple different coat patterns, as well as becoming more social with people. When human tribes began to move and migrate, so did the cats. According to National Geographic, “the earliest evidence of domestic cats is from Cypress, dating back 9,500 years.”
For scientists it was difficult to trace the house cat to its’ ancestors, and they have relied on genetics to distinguish between wild and domestic cats. They compared genes of the house cat with the Near Eastern wildcat, the Southern African
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In another recent study, published in the Journal of Biogeography, shows the true danger that cats pose to Australia’s native wildlife. Tim Doherty selected a group of researchers to go with him to record all of the reports of what species cats had eaten and came up with a list of 400 different vertebrates. On the bright side, the felines prefer to eat rabbits, another invasive species. However, when no rabbits are found, nothing else is really safe from the predators.
In the United States, they have tried to help find a solution to the feral cat population by setting up a TNR (Trap-Neuter-Return) Program. Where workers for the state, as well as volunteers, set up traps in places that known colonies of cats are located, sedate the animals, spay and neuter them, then return them back into the wild, or take more social ones to shelters to be adopted.
In Florida, where a colony consisting of over 2,000 feral cats resides, many people feel it would just be better to kill all of the creatures. In fact, a group of Floridian conservationists are still upset because, in the US, feral cats are one of the biggest threats to small mammal and bird species. One study even shows that wildcats alone kill around 1.3 to 4.0 billion birds and almost 2.3 billion small mammals every