Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Cats and rats

Thanks to yskat for sending this. One of the misconceptions about cats is that they need to hunt and kill rats whereas from what I've observed, the presence of cats is enough to be a deterrent. Of course, there are some areas where there are cats and rats in the same vicinity. Desmond Morris mentioned in his seminal book, Catwatching that the rats need to be below a certain size for cats to be able to hunt - or I suspect, even intimidate them.

Eliminate the cats - and rats are likely going to follow.

4 comments:

Brad Farless said...

Ya, I mentioned that in a blog post before. People in Singapore seem so keen on getting rid of cats, without realizing that they're the deterrent to a more serious problem. Rodents are the typical carriers of diseases, including the historical black plague that killed tens of thousands.

Singapore Community Cats said...

EPA Allows Rat Poison Manufacturers to Poison Kids

Anonymous said...

When I lived in Tokyo, my flat was not very new and had rodens especially at kitchen and drains but once I started having cats in my flat all those such as cockroaches and rats had disappeared. One day my cat accidentally stepped out onto my balcony and there happened to be one cockroach approaching to my balcony from my next neighbour's balcony and it suddenly made an u-turn back to my neoghbour's... haha it's all true and my cat was proven to be a mighty repellent for rodents!

Dawn said...

Exactly - very useful :)