Hello Everyone,
Why is it that animals like feral cats seem to trust humans? Not all of them, but many will allow you to approach and given a little time pet them. They wouldn’t trust a dog or even another cat.
It could be a learned response; people will feed and show affection to feral cats.
Feral cats do not trust me; I have worked at facilities with significant numbers of them, and they never would so much as eat food I provided in my presence. They do warm to my spouse, though.
Give feral kittens a little food and you can’t keep them away. I think most of them starve to death before they learn to hunt effectively so they’re always hungry.
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You may be misidentifying strays as ferals. Most experts (such as the ASPCA) will attest that “[w]hile some feral cats tolerate a bit of human contact, most are too fearful and wild to be handled.”
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To the degree that the premise is not false, remember that the animals are still genetically the progeny of animals that have been bred to be pets for thousands of years.
In my experience, the only cats which will not approach humans were those that were severely abused. I have seen generations of cats where the offspring lose all sense of fear towards humans. This also works in reverse. I had a feral cat drop a litter of kittens under a dog’s house, so they lost all fear of dogs. There is also a societal aspect. If several cats are living together and the majority approach a human, the rest will follow.
On the flip side, I have heard of countless stories of humans who do not know how to approach a cat. Food, let them smell you, then wait. If they come close, just wait. Don’t try to touch them unless they touch you first.
Conversely, there is a huge danger inherent with any animal. You should not be trying to touch any animal that seems to be wild. If it is a nuisance, call the state animal control to handle it.
Can I just highlight this portion?
Feral cats are very significant human health risks. If spooked or cornered they will bite and minimally rabies shots for you will be required. There are more rabid cats than dogs.
This. Many cats people identify as feral are actually dumped pets.
You’re assuming that it’s the default state for animals to fear humans. The default state is actually indifference.
And truly feral cats do occasionally become domesticated (I’m leaving aside the question of whether it’s the human or the cat itself doing the domestication). It’s more common in kittens, but can occur for adult cats. Most of the cats I’ve lived with have started life as ferals.
Right now, my mom has a cat that started off as feral and afraid of humans, and which she encouraged to stick around because she was keeping vermin away from the chicken feed. Nowadays, that cat has gotten to the point where if you bring her food, she’ll insist that you pet her before she’ll give you a chance to feed her. Meanwhile, her brother (at least, we think he’s her brother) has had all the same opportunities and exposure to humans that she has, but still fears humans.
Oh, and for anyone wondering, all of the cats in question have had all of their shots and been spayed or neutered.
Ah, so you’ve been turned away from a young woman’s bed because her cat didn’t like you?
There’s a blurry line between “feral” and “stray”.
Two years ago, a stray cat gave birth to a litter of kittens, in the alley behind our house. By the time we coaxed them into coming up to the house for food and letting us stand two feet away while they ate, the kittens were about four months old. None of them would let us touch them at this point, regardless of how patient we were about not scaring them, letting them come to us, et cetera. Around that time, I read on a website that most kittens, if they haven’t been touched by a human before the age of two months, will NEVER allow themselves to be touched by a human. This made me wish that we had tried harder to socialize them at an earlier age.
Anyway, we trapped them in cages, took them to a vet clinic to be fixed, and released them back into the yard. The clinic “tips” their ear so you know they are fixed feral cats. Now, two years later, ONE of the five kittens actually lets me pet him, two of them don’t, and the other two are dead from being hit by cars. The momma cat (stray, not feral) lets me pet her.
During the same time period, we’ve seen a dozen other cats wander into our yard and beg for food. The majority of them let us pet them (after they got to know us). Unlike the five kittens discussed above, I don’t know the circumstances of these dozen cats’ birth or their prior history with humans. I assumed that they are strays, not feral. But at least one of that dozen had a tipped ear and yet let me pet her. So that one tells me she was feral, not stray.
The vet can’t tell the difference between feral and stray any better than you can. If that was a stray cat whose owners hadn’t originally spayed her, and then she got loose and someone else caught her and brought her in to the vet, she’d end up being a stray cat with a clipped ear.
We knew the cats that lived in the woods behind our house for 3 generations were feral. When we moved we caught grandma and one of her grand-kittens to take with us. Grandma took a couple of weeks of luring into a cage with food before we trapped her the first time to get her spayed after her first litter. It took a lot longer than that to get her the second time to move. The kittens we just had to grab, they would come around begging for food. After we moved grandma ran off to the woods where a lot of feral cats lived. A short time later the coyotes moved in and the feral cat population, along with the some of the pet population, disappeared.
It’s easy to tell, just open up your mind and let the cat take over. If you first thought is getting wet food, it’s a stray; if your first thought is to bodily injury yourself, then it’s a feral.
I get abandoned cats showing up here regularly, sure they’re scared but not unfriendly. The feral cats are easy to spot, 80 to 100 pounds, almost solid tawny, really long tail with a distinct black tip, I’m guessing 2 inch long fangs for safety purposes.
I’ve been feeding five to seven adult ferals twice a day for the past year. It all started when one showed up in our backyard thirsty, and drinking from the birdbath. I put out fresh water and it went from there. I now have a large food shelter, half a dozen winter-proof sleeping shelters, and “safe” spots under trees in the backyard.
There are four “regulars” who live in my backyard, thanks to my feeding them and the destruction of their former home. Every morning I’m greeted with meows and surrounded by them. I make no attempt to touch them, yet two do rub up against me. I can be leaning in the food shelter (it’s base is a foot high to keep them off of the ground) and one will jump in even as a fill food bowls. We are 18 inches apart from each other, face to face. It’s a tenuous trust factor to be sure. But I’m not worried.
I’m working to trap them so they can be spayed/neutered and then released back here. As long as they show up I will feed and care for them.
This is kinda putting the cart before the horse. To me, the definition of ‘feral cat’ is one that never got acclimated to humans. If it trusts humans then it is, by definition, not feral. It’s very sad and frustrating, but there are uncountable numbers of originally ‘pet’ cats simply abandoned (strays). 
No, the definition of “feral” is an animal descended from domesticated animals, but not born domesticated. Even if it happens to like humans anyway, it can still be feral.
Older feral cats don’t really trust humans. I’ve had one around my house and even though I fed it for weeks it would move away from me when I came close. The kittens are also afraid of you until you break the fear with a lot of effort by giving them food and trying to catch them and petting them when you do catch them. I’ve had one for a month and still it would act like the mother, you could hardly catch it. Her brother warmed up to me but this one wouldn’t. Even though I feed it for a month it thinks I’m going to kill it or something.
Your sample is biased–you’re not counting most of the feral cats that won’t approach you–they’re avoiding you (and places with humans in general) unless they think they can remain out of sight.
We had a colony on feral cats in my city they lived behind a seafood restaurant, it was getting to be a health concern . Some women got together and trapped the cats and brought them to the vet to get fixed and shots and people brought the cats to foster homes . Most the adults cats had to be release behind the restaurant , they had plenty of food , seafood people feed them and mice .
The adult cats hated being in a house and didn’t trust people no matter how nice the foster owner was . The younger cats were found forever home.
This program was so successful is now a no killer shelter for cats and been open for years. I had a feral cat and it wanted no part of being in a home , she slept outside she did eat my food and became friends with my dog . I thought that was interesting . I was living Ca. so it OK for my cat to sleep outside.