Journal
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Volume 6, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
NATURE RESEARCH
DOI: 10.1038/srep22559
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Australian Wildlife Conservancy
- Australian Research Council
- Western Australian Department of Parks and Wildlife
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Feral cats are normally territorial in Australia's tropical savannahs, and hunt intensively with home-ranges only two to three kilometres across. Here we report that they also undertake expeditions of up to 12.5 km from their home ranges to hunt for short periods over recently burned areas. Cats are especially likely to travel to areas burned at high intensity, probably in response to vulnerability of prey soon after such fires. The movements of journeying cats are highly directed to specific destinations. We argue that the effect of this behaviour is to increase the aggregate impact of cats on vulnerable prey. This has profound implications for conservation, considering the ubiquity of feral cats and global trends of intensified fire regimes.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available