When someone mentions he feeds the stray cats the hot dogs mentioned in the thread he later posts "why do all the stray cats show up here " IT reminded me of the strays in currently feeding
in that it was only one cat in the beginning then 2,3, and then 4 cats mostly at different times because they fight each other too much
What I’m wondering is there some way that when one cat eats at a spot it can show/tell the others or others can tell when and where the original cat ate?
The cats will be able to smell that the first cat has fed recently. They’ll be able to smell the food themselves and also follow the starter cat’s scent to the food spot.
I don’t think felines have ever been seen to call strangers to food, but stray cats do sometimes form a friendship bond with non-related cats. There’s a lot of variables in a cat’s personal relationships, though.
This article discusses food altruism in non-human species. They point out that it’s mostly done for a percieved social benefit, making it more transactional than altruistic. But it’s undoubtedly the sort of instinct that human food altruism would have sprung from initially.
You can read teh pdf there and it has good links to further cites as well. It’s a very brief (too brief really) article that mentions vampire bats, various canines, corvids and a range of primates.
The article doesn’t mention dolphin and whale behavior. Those animals are famous for trying assist humans they encounter in the water. Here’s a video I watched yesterday of an orca trying to feed a fish to a diver. It’s on Reddit, sorry, but at least it’s short.
And even better is this 6 minute clip of a National Geographic photographer photograph what would be the world’s most disappointed Leopard Seal mom. I’m sure she went back to her flock and told them all that the stories were wrong: humans are completely gormless.
(WARNING: dead penguin innards).
Anyway, yeah, animals always have ways to communicate or share food. Assessing their motivations is a bit dicey. I’m hesitant to accept human researchers who want to frame animal altruism as being somehow lesser than human altruism. (Humans aren’t special; we’re just different. We made pack behavior our main adaptation.) But resource sharing occurs all along the spectrum and so does the method for communicating about it.
This plus, as the saying goes, curiosity killed the cat. Like most active hunting and foraging animals, they are naturally inquisitive and are almost obsessive about knowing and exploring what is going on in their world.
It is totally against their nature for something to be going on, and for them not to investigate.
from my personal experience: one of my neighbors was nurishing her 3 cats that lived more or less on their own in our building’s park. Soon, there has been 18 cats around! all coming at the dinner hours and going away after. Many of this cats had collars and were nurished elsewhere but came to eat. Not many socialisation between them, they reacted more like competitors than friends. When she had to move, she took her cats and for some days, the others came, whining since nobody was here to feed them.
So definitely, they had the info “food!”, but don’t know how.
The lucky cat with the food does not show the others how lucky he is.
It’s the unlucky cats with no food who are constantly on the prowl,trying to stay alive.
When they see a cat off in the distance , they immediately go into defensive mode, gauging whether the new cat is a danger to them, so they watch carefully.And if they see the cat with its head down in the feeding position, they get very very interested.
Meanwhile, the cat who is eating is constantly stopping between every bite or two to raise his head and look around, on guard for any competitors.
So, yeah, the cats “find” each other, but not because they’re trying to show each other where to share the food.
Some cats then become friendly with each other and with the human feeding them. Some don’t.
cite: Every day, I feed 4 strays at home,and 6 at work. And I chase away several others who interfere, because they can’t figure out that cooperation brings more rewards than fighting.