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Feather boas lure feral cats, study finds (www.australiangeographic.com.au)

submitted 2 years ago by Treevan@aussie.zone to c/environment@aussie.zone

4 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Just like their domesticated counterparts, it turns out feral cats can't resist playing with a dangling feather boa.

"Although we need to remember, feral cats in Australia - while they are very different behaviourally to pet cats in most senses, they've never seen a human before and they're terrified of our presence - they are still at the end of the day the same species of cats we have at home, so they're going to play when they have the opportunity," Alexandra says.

Alexandra explains that, while the feather boas were most effective in Tasmania at attracting feral cats, a meat lure could be just as effective on the mainland.

"There's research out of the University of Tasmania that cats and devils avoid each other - so if we start putting meat in front of our cameras to lure cats to see if they are there, could we actually be shooting ourselves in the foot because devils are far better at finding meat than cats are, so what if we're actually just attracting devils, and in that sense, deterring cats?".

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[–] Gnugit@aussie.zone 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Disappointed it wasn't a real boa eating cats.

[–] Tau@aussie.zone 2 points 2 years ago

It took an unfortunately long time (until I clicked through to the article) for me to realise it wasn't a real snake under discussion here...

[–] doppelgangmember@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

Feral cats have been shown to decimate local bird populations

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 2 points 2 years ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Alexandra saw these scenes play out in sequences of photographs captured with camera traps she had planted in the Tasmanian wilderness:

Earlier this year, Alexandra set out to discover which lures are most effective at attracting feral cats to walk in front of camera traps.

“I don’t want land managers who are busy trying to fix the cat problem wasting their time putting out lures that aren’t going to work.

Alexandra set 64 traps across four different grid locations within Tasmania’s southeastern rainforests, rotating four different types of lure:

“They [meat lures] can work in arid parts of Australia but it gets a little trickier in Tasmania because we also have native carnivores, including the amazing scavenger, the Tasmanian devil,” she says.

“So if we can also, as a by-product of this experiment, find ways to better monitor our natives as well, and get more pictures of them to measure their recovery or how their populations are changing in response to all the hard work we’re doing, then all the better!”

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