Maintaining complex vegetation cover can reduce predation rates of small prey species from feral cat predation.Ĭitation: McGregor H, Legge S, Jones ME, Johnson CN (2015) Feral Cats Are Better Killers in Open Habitats, Revealed by Animal-Borne Video. This has broad implications for management of vegetation and disturbance processes (like fire and grazing) in areas where feral cats threaten native fauna. This research shows that habitat structure has a profound influence on the impacts of small predators on their prey. Hunting success was highly dependent on microhabitat structure surrounding prey, increasing from 17% in habitats with dense grass or complex rocks to 70% in open areas. From 89 hours of footage, we recorded 101 hunting events, of which 32 were successful.
We attached collar-mounted video cameras to feral cats living in a tropical savanna environment in northern Australia, and measured variation in hunting success among different microhabitats (open areas, dense grass and complex rocks). These effects are poorly understood due to the difficulty of observing actual hunting behaviours. One of the key gaps in understanding the impacts of predation by small mammalian predators on prey is how habitat structure affects the hunting success of small predators, such as feral cats.
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