Exposed: the secret life of your pet cat
WHEN it comes to the world of cats, TS Eliot was right. The inscrutable creatures of the night really are likely to have three different names.
An audacious experiment to discover what felines get up to on their nocturnal adventures has discovered they are as fickle, fussy and finicky as the great poet wrote.
Far from being loyal and devoted pets, your average moggie seems quite happy to share affections with other owners if there is tastier food or more cuddles on offer.
Using the latest satellite technology and miniature “cat cam” cameras attached to collars, researchers have been able to build up the most comprehensive insight into their midnight activities.
The outcome is revealed in this week’s edition of BBC2 science programme Horizon and follows the movements of 50 pets living in the Surrey village of Shamley Green, supposedly the place with the greatest number of pet cats in the country.
Producers tracked the animals as they roamed, squabbled, hunted and did what comes naturally around the village while its human inhabitants slept, and were left amazed at their readiness to visit other homes.
Professor Alan Wilson of the Royal Veterinary College, an expert on Africa’s big cats and who has recently been studying cheetahs, turned his attentions to domestic pets after realising science knows more about lions and tigers than the average domesticated moggie. Besides fitting a GPS tracker to plot the cats’ movements, he also had to adapt the collar cameras so they would switch on when the animals were not asleep, otherwise there would have been endless hours of static film.
When the footage was finally reviewed, the results were highly illuminating and proved long-held beliefs that cats are so cunning and disloyal they are not averse to make nightly visits to other homes to feed.
“We had so much footage from cats going through other people’s cat flaps that, in the end, we had to adapt the GPS system,” Professor Wilson told the Radio Times. “We can’t show the interiors of people’s houses, especially when they did not even know how many cats were in their house.
The researchers Dr John Bradshaw, Dr Sarah Ellis and Professor Alan Wilson
We had so much footage from cats going through other people’s cat flaps that, in the end, we had to adapt the GPS system
Professor Wilson told Radio Times
“They sleep a lot, but they also make friendship groups. We found that they almost come out in a rota. If there is a cat out and about whom they don’t get on with, they stay in until that cat goes back home.
....The Secret World Of The Cat is on BBC2 at 9pm this Thursday.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/406148 ... ur-pet-cat
