Free-roaming cats in Cyprus travel surprisingly far and their movements may increase contact with wildlife and sensitive habitats, a study has shown.
GPS tracking has revealed that the average daily movement of stray cats is about 1km and that they exhibit larger home ranges in rural and forested areas.
Free-roaming cats in Cyprus have never been officially counted, but an informal estimate puts their number at around one million, or about 108 cats per square kilometre if accurate. This is comparatively higher than the density of cats in the likes of New York or Texas.
The cats’ wide roaming patterns may be linked to Cyprus’ island ecology, where the absence of large natural predators allows free-roaming cats to behave as apex predators.
The study found that free-roaming cats in Cyprus travelled around one kilometre a day on average, with some males even covering nearly four kilometres in a single day.
So, perhaps they are not as lazy as many would have thought. Rural and forest cats ranged farther than urban cats, which suggests cats near natural areas may have more opportunity to overlap with wildlife habitats.
Researchers found that free-roaming cats were most active in the early morning and late afternoon. These are periods that may coincide with increased wildlife activity and therefore raise the likelihood of encounters with birds, reptiles and small mammals.
The study does not prove how many animals are killed, but it suggests the movement pattern may increase the risk to wildlife.
The main finding is that free-roaming cats in Cyprus may pose a wildlife risk because of how far, where and when they move, but the scale of their ecological impact remains unknown.