Where do your cats go when you are not at home?
Where do your cats go when you are not at home?
National Geographic published a recent article about a cat collar that contains a GPS device, with the help of which cat owners can actually learn about their cats whereabouts when they are not at home. The device is called Cat Tracker and it seems it will help environmentalists, biologists and nature conservationists save the lives of little mammals that act like cats’ prey. At the same time, it will bring new and interesting data about cats behavior, particularly when they are left alone.
In the U.S., for instance, “ecologists are concerned about where cats go, because they have a reputation for killing lots of native birds and mammals,” said Roland Kays of the Biodiversity and Earth Observation Lab at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, one of the project leaders.
Quote source: National Geographic
Sometimes cats give us the impression they have not been doing too much when we’ve been out of the house. But recent experiments have shown that cats actually travel neighborhoods, have friends and entertain themselves with other cats. All this, while we’re out doing our daily activities.
The Cat Tracker website explains how pet owners can get a hold on a GPS device and attach it to the pet’s collar. It’s really simple to find out what you’re cat has been doing while you were out.
Projects such as this one were also made in the past. For instance, in 2011 in Illinois, a similar experiment took place and concluded that cats have a marked territory of about 6.000 acres, and in the case of cats that don’t have owners, this territory is even larger.
One feral male had a home range of more than 1,300 acres (520 hectares), almost double the size of New York’s Central Park. It wandered through a combination of urban and rural sites that exposed it to a variety of dangers, from busy streets and parking lots to coyotes and foxes.
Quote source: National Geographic
In conclusion, the Cat Tracker device will help owners better know their pets. It is an innovative way of setting a strong bond between owners and their cats.
