Home range and diet of feral cats in Hawaii forests

Abstract

Feral cat Felis catus home range in a Hawaiian montane wet forest and their diet in three habitats - montane wet forest, subalpine dry forest, and lowland dry forest ? were determined to provide baseline ecological data and to assess potential impacts to native terrestrial fauna. Seven cats (three males and four females) were captured in 624 trap nights. Mean weight of adult cats was 2.85 � 0.27 (SE) kg for males and 1.87 � 0.03 kg for females. Mean diurnal home range using the adaptive kernel method was 5.74 � 2.73 km2 for three males and 2.23 � 0.44 km2 for two females. Daytime locations were always within the montane wet forest with the borders on one or more sides of the home ranges of all cats defined by open grassland pastures. Rodents comprised the majority of the cat diets in all three habitats, with the frequencies of occurrence between 0.88 and 0.91. Bird remains were a regular component of the diet of cats, with montane wet forest having the highest frequency of occurrence (0.68), followed by subalpine dry forest (0.53). and lowland dry forest (0.21).

Monitoring invasive mammalian predator populations sharing habitat with the Critically Endangered Puerto Rican parrot Amazona vittata

“…The successful reintroduction of Aldabra rails Dryolimnas aldabranus was partly attributed to releasing the birds on a cat-free island (Wanless et al, 2002). Birds reached their highest proportion in feral cat diets in the montane wet forest of Hawaii (Smucker et al, 2000). Similar dietary studies are not available for feral cats in Puerto Rico but the Hawaiian data, given our findings, reinforces the need to increase attention on cats as predatory threats to Puerto Rican parrots.…”

“…Cats have not been removed from parrot areas in recent years, although they were in the past. A reassessment of the predation risk from cats is warranted, because of their abundance and their well-known negative impacts on insular avifauna world-wide, including extinctions (Karl & Best, 1982;Tideman et al, 1984;Smucker et al, 2000;Wanless et al, 2002;Nogales et al, 2004). The last population of the Stephan Island wren Traversia lyalli was extirpated by a single cat (Fuller, 2000), as probably was the Angel de la Guarda deer mouse Peromyscus guardia on Estanque Island, Gulf of California (Vàzquez-Domínguez et al, 2004).…”

Roaming habits of pet cats on the suburban fringe in Perth, Western Australia: what size buffer zone is needed to protect wildlife in reserves?

“…Most studies of the home ranges of feral cats show that males have larger home ranges aones and Coman 1982, Fitzgerald and Karl 1986, Konecny 1987, Haspel and Calhoon 1989, Smucker et al 2000, Bir6 et al 2004, while a smaller number of studies did not test for sex, based differences (Naidenko and Hupe 2002) or found no difference in male and female home ranges after statistical testing (Langham andPorter 1991, Page et al 1992). On the basis of our data and the published records, it seems likely that male feral and pet cats do roam more than females although the considerable variability in home range makes statistical validation difficult.…”

Trophic ecology of feral cats (Felis silvestris f. catus) in the main environments of an oceanic archipelago (Canary Islands): An updated approach

“…Feral cats predated on other introduced mammal species, especially rats and mice, when rabbits are absent or their populations are scarce (Fitzgerald 1988;Harper 2005). For example, in some of the forest habitats of Hawaii and the Canary Islands, where rabbit populations are low, rats were the main prey item (Nogales and Medina 1996;Smucker et al 2000). Rats were particularly highly consumed by feral cats on New Zealand's surrounding islands, such as Little Barrier Island (Marshall 1961), Campbell Island (Dilks 1979) or Stewart Island (Karl and Best 1982).…”