I had a cat that hunted birds but never succeeded. After stalking his way to only a couple of feet away from an unsuspecting bird he would jump straight up in the air and look with disappointing amazement while the bird flew away. So maybe it’s possibly to breed enough behavior out of some cats that they wouldn’t be as harmful to the flying population but still maintain their small rodent hunting skills.
Wouldn’t make much difference. A small number of such cats won’t change anything and I doubt such attributes would spread through the cat population.
Maine Coon is considered one of the landrace breeds of cats: not specifically bred for its final characteristics but truebred from progenitors that naturally had those characteristics.
In the Venn diagram showing an overlap of “giant cats” and “worshipped companions” there is the early generation Savannah cat. One of the modern hybrids between wild cat and domestic cat species, in an effort to have wild cat coloration (and in this case size) combined with domestic breeds comparative docility.
The Savannah’s tall and slim build give them the appearance of greater size than their actual weight. Size is very dependent on generation and sex. Early (F1 and F2) generations are usually the largest due to the stronger genetic influence of the African serval ancestor, usually weighing 4.5 to 11 kilograms (9.9 to 24.3 lb), although there is considerable financial incentive for breeders to produce F1 cats as large as possible; some are the size of dogs and can weigh 18 kilograms (40 lb) or more, and in the US can fetch very high prices.
Granted, even at the high end, they’re smaller than most big dog breeds, but pretty hefty for a cat. I have a late gen Savannah F6 or thereabouts, and she’s 7kg, with only a bit of it being chonk.
As for people who bring actual servals, tigers, or other wild cats into their life… well, sure they’re big, but that means even with best of (cat-like) intentions, a playful swat can have major consequences.
We could make Guard Cats out of them! They puff up hugely, hiss and spit twice as loudly as now…then run away and hide under the couch while the burglars carry on.
I have known an actual Guard Cat. She weighed about six pounds, lived with my sister, and needed to be shut up before my sister left the house if there were going to be people present other than her nuclear family; at least, she was always so shut up after the time the babysitter needed to go get stitched back together.
She didn’t consider me one of the Accepted Family (though she immediately accepted all of my sister’s children, including the two who were adopted from another country and must have smelled pretty strange when they first showed up. Very smart cat.) She put up with me when I came to visit, because Immediate Family let me in and had clearly authorized me. Once, however, I was the last to leave after a holiday celebration. I saw my sister and BIL off to their conference, and went back in, only human in the house, intending to get my luggage and use the bathroom.
I was extremely glad that said luggage was already packed and right inside the door. The Guard Cat was sitting on a stair railing right behind it with every inch of her expressing “I have to put up with you when they’re here, but they’re not here, and you are NOT coming one step further into this house.” I took one look at the body language of that cat, grabbed my luggage, got back out the door, and took my piss at a gas station down the road.
People have an extreme propensity to desire animals that have the faces of deformed furry children. In the west, they’ve distorted some dog breeds’ heads so they can barely breathe, eat, swim, or reproduce. In Asia they go for the cats.
