Keeping Cats Well-fed and Content

Making sure that a pet cat is well fed may combat this carnage. But the hunting will probably continue because of the cat's strong predatory instincts. Still, in 1980, the work of animal behaviorist Tim Caro of the University of California, Davis, showed that many cats require experience with a particular type of prey in order to hunt it successfully. Cats exposed to mice as kittens gain efficiency killing rodents, but their success does not carry over very well to killing birds. Thus, one way of improving the odds of having a pet cat that will not hunt birds may be to adopt a kitten that has never been exposed to that prey.

The cats' increasing presence in human society suggests a growing interest in this most recently domesticated mammal. Many scientists share this interest and are pursuing research into just what it means to be a cat in a human world.