That study doesn't make "cats rarely attack rats" accurate.
More accurately from that study - a transient group of feral cats rarely attack huge rats that are in a 150 rat colony at a waste management facility.
- They watched huge urban rats that had engorged themselves at a waste management facility
- A large rat colony can communicate and they had safe routes established by the time the researchers and cats visited
- The feral cats had better options in and around that facility for food or fun
- They observed many cats in the environment which changed the rat behavior. "a one percent increase in the number of cats on a given day made it 100 times less likely that a rat would trigger the team’s motion-sensitive cameras". So throw a ton of cats at the problem and they become less effective.
“You can watch a lot of cats and rats accommodating one another, easing by one another, eating out of the same trash bag.”
Many predator/prey animals will ignore each other if there is an ample food supply to share. Hyenas and lions do this. Lions don't stop eating a kill to go kill hyenas. They'll chase them off or choose to share a meal.
Long time ago I used to have a huge cat that was indoor/outdoor. It went outside and killed anything that moved. It once drug home a large rabbit and put it on the doorstep.
This study shows, contrary to what many would think, that you can't toss feral cats at a huge rat colony and expect them to eradicate them. True. Especially good to know if you run a waste management facility in New York.
You'd probably get more kills if you used a single well-fed housecat than letting a lot of feral cats come and go into the rat colony which drastically changed their behavior and made them stay in hiding.
Put a rat and cat in your house and the cat WILL attack it. Send a cat into a rat's environment, same thing. Watch a bunch of feral cats come and go into a rat colony with huge rats - yeah, probably not many attacks as they load up on the easy food from the trash bags and the rats stay hidden. Fat rats can do that. Especially at a waste management facility.
The general claim that cats rarely attack rats due to that study is silly.
More accurately from that study - a transient group of feral cats rarely attack huge rats that are in a 150 rat colony at a waste management facility.
- They watched huge urban rats that had engorged themselves at a waste management facility
- A large rat colony can communicate and they had safe routes established by the time the researchers and cats visited
- The feral cats had better options in and around that facility for food or fun
- They observed many cats in the environment which changed the rat behavior. "a one percent increase in the number of cats on a given day made it 100 times less likely that a rat would trigger the team’s motion-sensitive cameras". So throw a ton of cats at the problem and they become less effective.
“You can watch a lot of cats and rats accommodating one another, easing by one another, eating out of the same trash bag.”
Many predator/prey animals will ignore each other if there is an ample food supply to share. Hyenas and lions do this. Lions don't stop eating a kill to go kill hyenas. They'll chase them off or choose to share a meal.
Long time ago I used to have a huge cat that was indoor/outdoor. It went outside and killed anything that moved. It once drug home a large rabbit and put it on the doorstep.
This study shows, contrary to what many would think, that you can't toss feral cats at a huge rat colony and expect them to eradicate them. True. Especially good to know if you run a waste management facility in New York.
You'd probably get more kills if you used a single well-fed housecat than letting a lot of feral cats come and go into the rat colony which drastically changed their behavior and made them stay in hiding.
Put a rat and cat in your house and the cat WILL attack it. Send a cat into a rat's environment, same thing. Watch a bunch of feral cats come and go into a rat colony with huge rats - yeah, probably not many attacks as they load up on the easy food from the trash bags and the rats stay hidden. Fat rats can do that. Especially at a waste management facility.
The general claim that cats rarely attack rats due to that study is silly.