Home range size and habitat selection of owned outdoor domestic cats ( Felis catus ) in urban southwestern Ontario.
| Autor: | Pyott ML; Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada., Norris DR; Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada., Mitchell GW; Department of Integrative Biology, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.; Wildlife Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, National Wildlife Research Centre, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada., Custode L; Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada., Gow EA; Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada.; Wildlife Research Division, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Pacific Wildlife Research Centre, Delta, British Columbia, Canada. |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Zdroj: | PeerJ [PeerJ] 2024 Mar 29; Vol. 12, pp. e17159. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Mar 29 (Print Publication: 2024). |
| DOI: | 10.7717/peerj.17159 |
| Abstrakt: | Domestic cats ( Felis catus ) play a dual role in society as both companion animals and predators. When provided with unsupervised outdoor access, cats can negatively impact native wildlife and create public health and animal welfare challenges. The effective implementation of management strategies, such as buffer zones or curfews, requires an understanding of home range size, the factors that influence their movement, and the types of habitats they use. Here, we used a community/citizen scientist approach to collect movement and habitat use data using GPS collars on owned outdoor cats in the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge-Guelph region, southwestern Ontario, Canada. Mean (± SD) 100% minimum convex polygon home range size was 8 ± 8 ha (range: 0.34-38 ha) and was positively associated with road density but not with intrinsic factors such as boldness, sex, or age. With regards to habitat selection, cats used greenspaces, roads, and agricultural land less often than predicted but strongly selected for impervious surfaces (urban areas other than greenspaces or roads). Our results suggest that wildlife near buildings and residential areas are likely at the greatest risk of cat predation and that a buffer size of 840 m would be needed to restrict cats from entering areas of conservation concern. Competing Interests: The authors declare there are no competing interests. (©2024 Pyott et al.) |
| Databáze: | MEDLINE |
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