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a b s t r a c tPoland's Animal Protection Act, as of 2002, made it legal to shoot free-ranging cats and dogs. The act triggered substantial social debate with opponents arguing that this legislation was weakly supported by scientific evidence of the ecological impacts of free-ranging pets. Our main research goal was to examine the activity of free-ranging domestic cats within a Polish protected area by applying radio-telemetry methods to determine space use and degree of encroachment into the national park. We trapped and radio-tracked 19 animals from three sites (focal households) located in Ojcow National Park (ONP) in southern Poland from June 2003 to March 2006. Annual 100% MCP home range size varied from 0.02 km 2 to 1.46 km 2 , and was significantly larger for males (mean ± SE = 0.79 ± 0.34 km 2 ; median = 0.53 km 2 ) than for females (mean ± SE = 0.13 ± 0.05 km 2 ; median = 0.13 km 2 ). The distance travelled by individual cats from focal sites did not significantly differ between males (mean ± SE = 232.00 ± 21.05 m; median = 191 m) and females (mean ± SE = 232.50 ± 12.47 m; median = 228 m), with maximum distances of 1.5 km for males and 1.1 km for females. All monitored cats were in close proximity to nature reserves and ranged into protected areas without any human control. Cats living in the households in the park and its surrounding buffer zone, roaming at 200 m and 1000 m radius distances from their households, occupied from 6% to 100% of the park area, respectively. Our results reveal that free-ranging domestic cats roam through and potentially impact the entire national park, thus reducing its effective protected area.

The domestic cat is a widespread and abundant predator that negatively impacts a wide range of species. However, the predation activity and prey type of free-ranging cats may vary between areas with different levels urbanisation. Previous analyses of cat diet have used differing techniques to measure predation that often differ with one another. Given the variability in these methods we hypothesised that cats in rural areas will have a more diverse diet than in urban areas and their predation rate may be higher than those in the urban sites. Moreover, we hypothesized that the diet of urban cats should be highly influenced by anthropogenic food. We selected sites across a rural-to-urban gradient and used three methods of analysis to determine prey in the diet (cat stomachs, cat scats, and prey brought home). We collected 81 stomachs, 409 scats, and 337 prey items of free-roaming cats from six study sites located in southern and eastern Poland. We found seasonal and habitat related differences in prey composition. The proportion of scats and stomachs containing vertebrate varied from 17% in urban areas to 79% in one of the rural areas. Small rodents were the dominant prey category, followed by birds and soricomorphs. Anthropogenic food was found to be an important part of urban cats’ diet, but its significance decreased with a decrease in urbanisation level. Both predation rate and prey diversity were highest in rural areas. While diet analysis provided a better estimation of cat predation rate, the detailed prey examination provided better insight into less common taxa killed by the cats, such as reptiles and small mustelids. Our results contribute to the discussion about the risks associated with the activity of free ranging cats especially in areas with high conservation values.

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