The catscape: spatial manifestation of a pet cat population with outdoor access

Abstract

The domestic cat (Felis catus) is the most popular companion animal and the most abundant carnivore globally. It is also a pet with an immense ecological footprint, because even non-feral and food-subsidized cats are prolific predators. Whereas knowledge about the spatial behavior of individual domestic cats is growing, we still know little about how a local population of free-ranging pet cats occupies the landscape. Using a citizen science approach, we GPS-tagged 92 pet cats with outdoor access living in a residential area in southern Norway. The resulting position data allowed us to construct both individual home range kernels and a population-level utilization distribution. Our results reveal a dense predatory blanket that outdoor cats drape over and beyond the urban landscape. It is this population-level intensity surface - the "catscape" - that potential prey have to navigate. There were almost no gaps in the catscape within our residential study area and therefore few terrestrial refuges from potential cat predation. However, cats spent on average 79% of their outdoor time within 50 meters to their owners home, which suggests that the primary impact is local and most acute for wildlife in the vicinity to homes with cats. We discuss the catscape as a conceptual and quantitative tool for better understanding and mitigating the environmental impact of domestic cats.