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Old September 28th 18, 11:42 PM posted to rec.pets.cats.anecdotes
joy
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Default Cats terrible for catching rats

On 9/28/2018 1:05 PM, Bill Stock wrote:
On Thursday, September 27, 2018 at 11:25:20 PM UTC-4, Tigger wrote:
https://www.wired.com/story/rats-vs-cats/

IN THE SUMMER of 2017, Michael Parsons found the urban rat haven of his
dreams: A Waste Management transfer station—aka a literal trash heap, aka
rat paradise—in Brooklyn, New York. For nearly two years, the behavioral
ecologist and visiting scholar at Fordham University had been searching
for a place to observe the city-dwelling rodents in their natural habitat.

Trouble was, he needed to not only capture the critters and tag them, but
then to set them free. ...
...
But a few months into their investigation, they discovered with horror
that five feral cats had infiltrated the waste treatment facility and
begun patrolling the entrances to the rats' burrows.

At first, Parsons and his colleagues assumed that the felines posed a
mortal threat to their subjects. Then it hit them: They actually had no
idea how the rats would respond. Few studies have documented interactions
between feral cats and a wild rats. To a behaviorist like Parsons, the
cats' surprise arrival presented an irresistible opportunity. They decided
to let nature take its course.

Their observations, which the researchers recount in the latest issue of
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, revealed the cats to be miserable
predators of rats ...
...


I think it depends on the cat. Cali was an excellent mouser and would form hunting parties with her two students, Smokey and Cleo. Although Cleo came from outside, so I don't think she needed much training. One day a squirrel got in the house, so I went to get Cali for help, but she said, Yep that's a Squirrel, good luck with your new pet. She then went to bed. :-)

When I was young we had an old Tomcat, Tom who had been caught in a leg-hold trap, so his leg was a little messed up. He was a real character, he would eat lettuce and loved to nip my mother for attention. He was a true outdoor cat and had a bad habit of killing the neighbor's chickens. So I don't think a rat would phase him.


As you say, cats are individuals. It is very unwise to make blanket
statements about what cats do or don't like or will or will not do.