Cats

Lions roaming the savannah are a staple of nature documentaries. But the millions of little lions that live in our homes and [neighbourhoods:villages] also lead fascinating lives. We know more about those lives now because a two-year-long study used radio transmitters to track cats at the [southern:northern] edge of the cities of Champaign and Urbana in Illinois. It would have taken a dozen field researchers to collect the same data. The study is in the Journal of Wildlife Management. The entire kittie cohort included both housecats and feral cats and ranged over almost 6,300 acres. One feral cat's range topped out at 1,351 acres. New York's Central Park covers 843 acres.Owned cats with homes roamed way less than their feral counterparts. But they still [averaged:had] a range of just under five acres. The pets were highly active just 3 percent of the time, compared with 14 percent for the cats that need to find their own food. The work should shed light on protecting species that the cats hunt, and inform the efforts to stop the spread of [feline:disabled] contagious diseases.