The presence of stray domestic cats, for example, can severely impact the fauna of a natural environment. Knowing this, scientifically, is there any minimum distance considered safe between the presence of domestic cats in wildlife or natural environments?
Dear Paulo, this is an interesting question. I don't know the scientific data on this (if any), but I lived in a village for a long time, from where I went out a lot into the surrounding natural vegetation. (I am a botanist) I usually met domestic cats no more than 200 - 300 meters from the edge of the village. Of course, my observations were during the daytime. I don't know the distance that cats travel at night, but I guess it's a longer distance compared to their daytime mobility. Cheers, Peter
Hello Paulo; My field time is spent in Southern California Mediterranean communities. Mesopredators (Coyotes and Bobcats) forage right up to and within developed residential communties. They eat cats. I have never seen a feral cat more than a few meters into undisturbed habitats and my presumption has always been that experienced cats avoid coyote habitat.
Chaffey College (Alta Loma, CA) has a 23 acre nature preserve on the campus. You can inspect it on Google Earth. The developed campus is completely surrounded by residential communities. There are always cats residing on the campus, however, they do not enter the preserve. Interestingly, from time to time, I find partial cat remains in the preserve. They were probably carried there by one of the resident coyotes. Best regards, Jim Des Lauriers
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