There’s an older thread posing this question but it was mostly about a cat just left out. Obviously in an urban/suburban environment a cat could get taken in, be fed by strangers, get picked up by animal control, or survive off of garbage, but also fall victim to traffic and other human-related dangers.
What I’m wondering is how well an adult domestic cat who has spent the better part of its life in human care could survive if taken deep into the woods and just let go.
I was discussing this with my GF the other night and we have one cat that I think would do just fine because he was an outside cat for a long time (he’s elderly now so we keep him in), but our other cat I’m not so sure about. She’s young, quick and agile, but also not really the brightest crayon in the box and I’m not so confident she would survive any extended period of time outside of human care.
Bear in mind that the urban/suburban environment *is *the cat’s natural environment. They’ve evolved alongside humanity for millenia, and have adopted perfectly.
I’m not asking about feral cats. I’m asking about a domestic cat who’s spent its entire life in human care that is left out in the wild (no human presence) to fend for itself.
Not neccessarily. There’s no evidence that the cats here in the Middle East were ever domesticated - they probably wandered up from Egypt 5,000 years ago, and have been living in allyways ever since. Cats spread with humans, but they aren’t neccessarily spread *by *humans.
I think that the point that Mk VII was trying to make is that the feral cats had to come from somewhere, as they’re not native to the Australian continent. Specifically, they came from domestic cats that ended up out in the wild for one reason or another, survived, and began breeding rapidly.
Assuming the housecat were young and healthy, its hunting instincts would kick in as soon as it got hungry – notably, anything smaller than it that moves is food. It would also eat any dead animals it comes across (and its sense of smell means it can find them pretty easily).
It would also run away from anything larger than it (except for humans, since it’s learned they’re OK). The cat would be in as good a position to survive as one born in the wild.
It is a certainty that domestic cats can survive just fine the wild. As noted, there are populations of feral cats all over the world. A better question might be:
What are the chances that any given domestic cat will survive if let out into the wild?
There are domestic cats and then there are domestic cats. A barn cat being kept outdoors to control pests is going to have a much easier transition than a indoors-only pampered pet that has never hunted anything more significant than a stray moth.
In fact I’d lay odds that survival for the latter would be low. Not zero, certainly, but fairly low. Feral cats are definitely taught how to hunt by mom and lacking that instruction the indoors cat is going to be a crippling disadvantage that only a lot of luck ( and probably good health and youth to start out with ) is going to solve.
It really depends on the cat. Some adapt to hunting quite quickly, and some never really get the hang of it. I did feral cat trap/neuter/release for several years and discovered that while the original abandoned cats might not do all that well, second generation and thereafter did fairly well finding enough to eat. That did not save them from other animals (coyotes are becoming a big problem for barn cats around here), or death from disease or overbreeding.
Part of it depends on how wild an area. Anything anywhere near people is already an artificial environment . Sure most house cats don’t have a whole lot of predatory practice. But the predatees aren’t very good either. There are all kinds of fat stupid rodents and birds because so many natural predators have been repressed.
How long do stray cats survive in the wild? (Whether or not to call that formerly domesticated generation not born and raised in the wild as “feral” is a matter of opinion.) Obviously some survive long enough to breed another generation. Some die very quickly, I’d guess. How many make it several seasons? Few I would guess, but I think a GQ answer to that question is what is being asked.
Of the next, born and raised in the wild, generation Wiki cites sources stating a bit less than 5 years on average but with a wide range, compared to 12 to 14 for male domesticated and a year or so older for females.
I think youth and good health are the critical factors here. An older cat who has never had to hunt to feed itself will probably not last long if released into the ‘wild’. A young, strong healthy cat who has also never had to feed itself has a much better chance of surviving long enough to teach itself hunting skills before it starves to death.
I have a two year old cat who just this summer figured out how to open the screen door and escape. She would come home at the end of the day tired and hungry. But by her third or fourth escape, she was no longer coming home empty-handed. We still try to keep her confined, but when she escapes now, she invariably comes back proudly toting a fresh kill, a field mouse or a mole. She was not ‘taught’ how to hunt - her instincts served her well. I have no doubt she would do quite well on her own if she had to. Yes, she had the advantage of coming home to a good meal while she was honing her skills and perhaps she would not have done so well without that. But I think she would have made it. My other 12 year old cat? She would not have survived a week (even if she wasn’t deaf, which would make even a week optimistic).