Comment

Representation ID: 22518

Received: 16/03/2020

Respondent: Broadland Green Party

Cat-exclusion zones in rural and urban-fringe landscapes.
The issue of cat-exclusion zones is a sensitive and complex issue that has not been considered in the GNLP but is a serious aspect of retaining our natural wildlife and biodiversity. In a comprehensive study highlighting the impact of humankind it was found that whilst the human population represents just 0.01% of all living things humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants, while livestock and pets kept by humans abounds .
Domestic cats (Felis catus) are known predators of native and introduced wildlife occurring in high densities independent of fluctuations in prey species abundance. Because domestic cats are fed by their owners, they do not need to hunt to survive, and household food buffers them from prey population declines, enabling them to hunt birds and small mammals until prey reach very low numbers. The amount of food a cat is fed does not affect its propensity to hunt. Predation pressure is probably higher, given that domestic cats often live for 15 years or more, much longer than feral cats.
The process of urban sprawl brings the human population and their domestic cats in close contact with wildlife in areas that were previously remote, including reserves and conservation areas created to protect populations of vulnerable or threatened species. Various mitigation measures have been proposed, including devices designed to hinder cat hunting ability and regulations governing cat ownership. Such regulations may aim to reduce cat densities by limiting the number of cats per household, or they may define zones around sensitive conservation areas where cat ownership is prohibited.
How large should cat-exclusion zones have to be?
Even though the average home-range size of domestic cats living in low-density residential areas tends to be small, large inter-cat variation in ranging behaviour means that effectively to exclude domestic cats, exclusion zones would need to be wide.
Home ranges are larger at night than day. Sources of cover such as trees and buildings are preferred. Maximum distances moved and large variability between individual cats suggest buffers in rural landscapes would need to be at least 2.4 km wide, whereas those in urban-fringe habitat could be half as large .
We ask that serious consideration be given to the impact of cat predation on wildlife in the vicinity of future developments.