Les hommes ont oublié cette vérité. Mais tu ne dois pas l'oublier, dit le renard. Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé.
Le Petit Prince, chap. 21

Wednesday 5 March 2014

Home range and population ecology of feral cats in Australia

Jones, E., & Coman, B. J. (1982). Ecology of the Feral Cat, Felis catus (L.), in Souht-Eastern Australia III.* Home Ranges and Population Ecology in Semiarid North-West Victoria. Wildlife Research, 9(3), 409-420.

This paper reports home range sizes and population ecology of feral cats in a 19000-ha study area situated in the Victorian Mallee. Movements of six cats were monitored by radio-tracking for 8-21 months. Adults maintained discrete home ranges; areas varied from 3.3 to 9.9 (mean 6.2) kmfor males and from 0.7 to 2.7 (mean 1 ,7) kmfor females. Rabbit warrens, hollow logs and dense thickets were favoured daytime refuges. Mean daily straight-line distances moved bet-veen daytime refuges varied from 0.06 km for a female with juveniles to 1.67 km for an adult male. Relative abundance of cats over four years showed seasonal fluctuations, with summer maxima and winter or spring minima; the calculated mean summer and winter densities were 2.4 and 0.74 cats per kmrespectively. Summer maxima were composed of adults, adolescents and juveniles; winter minima were usually composed only of adults. Mortality, presumably caused by a nutritional stress acting particularly on subadults, maintained the adult population at a relatively stable level.

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