Pet cat personality linked to owner‐reported predation frequency

Abstract

The domestic cat, Felis catus, is one of the most popular and widespread domestic animals. Because domestic cats can reach high population densities and retain at least some tendency to hunt, their overall impact on wildlife can be severe. Domestic cats have highly variable predation rates depending on the availability of prey in their environment, their owners' practices, and individual cat characteristics. Among these characteristics, cat personality has recently been hypothesized to be an important factor contributing to variations in the hunting activity of cats. In this study, we surveyed 2508 cat owners living in France about their cats' personalities, using the Feline Five personality framework, and the frequency with which cats bring home prey. Personality traits were analyzed using factor analysis and related to predation frequency using cumulative logit models. For both birds and small mammals, cats with high levels of extraversion or low levels of neuroticism had significantly higher frequencies of prey return. Owners whose cats had low levels of agreeableness or high levels of dominance reported a significantly lower frequency of bird return.Personality differences therefore seem to contribute to the high variability in predation rates among domestic cats. We also found that the owner-reported prey return frequencies were significantly higher for cats spending more time outdoors, for nonpedigree cats, and for owners living in rural or suburban areas as opposed to urban areas. By contrast, we did not detect an effect of cat sex or age on their reported prey return rates.

Intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of home range size in owned domestic cats Felis catus: Insights from a French suburban study

“…Our findings suggest that the observed variation in home range size is primarily attributed to intrinsic differences among domestic cats. In line with this, recent studies (Cecchetti, Crowley, McDonald, & McDonald, 2022; Cordonnier, Ferry, et al, 2022; Cordonnier, Perrot, et al, 2022) have investigated the potential of using cat personality to predict predatory behavior, indicating that cat personality could serve as a valuable predictor of cat home range. Therefore, exploring the integration of cat personality and other potentially explanatory factors, including how cats are cared for at home (e.g., type of food or playtime, as explored by Cecchetti et al, 2021), presents a promising avenue for further research.…”

Spatiotemporal and Individual Patterns of Domestic Cat (Felis catus) Hunting Behaviour in France

“…Hunting specializations in cats have been already described in Australia [24,96] and in France [7], as well as profiles of cat personalities responsible for wildlife predation [7,[97][98][99]. Citizen science databases of prey brought home by cats collected at nation-wide scales over many years may provide the way forward to identifying persistent individual hunting patterns independent of the availability of prey in the environment.…”

Spatiotemporal and Individual Patterns of Domestic Cat (<em>Felis catus</em>) Hunting Behaviour in France

“…Hunting specializations in cats has been already described in Australia [24,93] and in France [5] as well as profiles of cat personality responsible for wildlife predation [5,[94][95][96]. Citizen science databases of prey brought home by cats collected at nation-wide scale over many years may provide the way forward to identify persistent individual hunting patterns independent of the availability of prey in the environment.…”