Title: Influence of the cat-owner relationship on behavior outside the home

Name: Erin Butikofer
Mentor: Michael R. Conover

Cats (Felis catus) were first domesticated in Egypt many millennia ago, and have long been cherished mousers and honored household members. Scientists have recently drawn attention to the impacts of domesticated cats on rural and urban wildlife species. Today, cats are found in homes in foreign habitats all around the world, including on isolated island ecosystems where their invasive roaming and predatory behaviors are endangering native and endemic species. In numerous cases, feral cat predation on islands has led to local extinctions of endemic avian species. In this study, we address the influence of the cat-owner relationship on indoor-outdoor and free-ranging cat behavior. We used 11 household cats from a village in southern Chile, with 2200 inhabitants, located in the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve (CHBR), a sub-Antarctic wilderness area. The CHBR and its ecosystems are highly affected by non-native mammals, particularly by indoor-outdoor and free-ranging cats and dogs. To determine the strength of the cat-owner relationship, from the owner’s perspective, the Cat-Owner Relationship Scale (CORS, 22 questions) was used. CORS evaluates the cat-owner relationship through three different subscales. Camera Collars were deployed to monitor the cats ranging behavior and predatory events in three to five 2-hour sessions over the course of several days to two weeks. To date, 56.5 hours of video (30 minutes – 10 hours per cat) have been recorded. These are the results of that study, with funding provided by an NSF-IRES grant.