6 ms·
The article mentions that the cats may be responsible for control of mice population, but apparently attacks on the New York rats are relatively rare being far
by throwaway675309 3y ago
The article mentions that the cats may be responsible for control of mice population, but apparently attacks on the New York rats are relatively rare being far larger and more aggressive.
- ycombinete 3y agoTime for foxes or bigger stray cats
- dmix 3y agoAnd then we’ll be stuck with gorillas https://youtu.be/P9yruQM1ggc https://youtu.be/P9yruQM1ggc
- MagicMoonlight 3y agoHow would anyone know how many rats the cats are eating?
- danielbln 3y agoPopulation correlation studies, camera traps, mark-recapture studies, GPS tracking to understand spatial relationships between cats and rats, analyzing cat stomach content and so on.
- badpun 3y agoApparently rodents avoid places that have a scent of a cat. So, cats don't even have to hunt them to have an effect on the population.
- fhe 3y agopurely as a thought experiment, I wonder if given enough time, the NYC stray cat population would observe a genetic drift towards larger body size and start preying on the abundant local rat population? I never lived in NYC, and don't know how big the rats are there, but the rats I've seen (mostly at uni. biology labs) they grow to about 25cm in length (about the length from tip of index finger to tip of thumb with hand stretched out to the fullest for someone with large hands, not counting the tail), which I think is entirely within what a normal-sized adult cat can tackle. urban rodents is a rich food source begging as an ecological niche to be filled.
- peanuty1 3y ago> I wonder if given enough time, the NYC stray cat population would observe a genetic drift towards larger body size How much time are we talking? Thousands of years?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nerdchum 3y agoAnd then the rodents will genetically drift to being larger as well and at some point in the future will have cats and rats as large as cars.
- kornhole 3y agoNY could introduce coyotes that will take care of both the rats and cats. They mostly hunt at night here in SF.
- garyclarke27 3y agoThat’s nonsense - When I lived in a rural area I had a Bengal cat that would bring home much larger prey than Rats such as Rabbits and Squirrels.
- Dork1234 3y agoNY Rats are larger than Rabbits and Squirrels.
- Octopodes 3y agoI do not know if this is or is not a joke.
- DoItToMe81 3y agoIt's not a joke. Some of the rats are larger than cats.
- Fatnino 3y agoPics or it didn't happen