Feral Cat
Feral Cat
LOCATION
Scientific name
Domesticated cat
Feral cat
Farm cat
NATIVE ORIGIN
Cats first arrived to the USVI as domestic pets of humans. Failure to spay and neuter these domestic cats, and cats on island today, has led many feral (wild) cats on all three main islands.
Ecological Impact
- Cats, both feral and domesticated are predators, and they will hunt and kill a wide range of wildlife, even if they are well fed. This can cause serious damage to local wildlife including birds, lizards, insects and more.
- Cats have been listed as the greatest threat to birds in the USA due to their high kill rates (Loss et al 2013).
- Feral cats have been known to drive numerous extinctions and reductions of populations of endemic vertebrates on islands (Veitch 2001, Nogales et al. 2004). Cats were included in the list of the 100 worst invasive species (Lowe et al. 2000).
Management/Control
What You Can Do!
- If you have a pet cat, get them spayed or neutered, keep them inside and spread the word to other cat owners!
- If you see an area with many stray cats let DFW and/or one of the facilities mentioned above know so they can be trapped and spayed/neutered.
References
Donlan, C. J., Tershy, B. R., Keitt, B. S., Wood, B., Sanchez, J. A., Weinstein, A., … & Alguilar, J. L. (2000). Island conservation action in northwest Mexico. In Proceedings of the Fifth California Islands Symposium (pp. 330-338).
Driscoll, C. A., Menotti-Raymond, M., Roca, A. L., Hupe, K., Johnson, W. E., Geffen, E., … & Macdonald, D. W. (2007). The Near Eastern origin of cat domestication. Science, 317(5837), 519-523.
Loss, S.R., T. Will, and P.P. Marra. 2013. The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States. Nature Communications 4:1396.
Lowe, S., Browne, M., Boudjelas, S., & De Poorter, M. (2000). 100 of the world’s worst invasive alien species: a selection from the global invasive species database (Vol. 12). Auckland: Invasive Species Specialist Group.
Nutter, F. B.; Levine, J. F. & Stoskopf, M. K. (2004). “Reproductive capacity of free-roaming domestic cats and kitten survival rate”. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. 225 (9): 1399–1402.
Veitch, C.R. 2001. The eradication of feral cats (Felis catus) from Little Barrier Island, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Zoology 28: 1-12.
