August 16, 2023
Image credit: Alexandra Paton
Just like their domesticated equivalents, it ends up feral cats can’t withstand having fun with a dangling plume boa.
“I couldn’t believe it,” says Alexandra Paton, a PhD trainee at University of Tasmania’s School of Natural Sciences.
“On three separate occasions, with three different cats, they approached the feather boas, eyeing them off, clearly identifying they weren’t an animal, and then proceeding to grab the feather boa and kick it, do the bunny kick, regardless!”
Alexandra saw these scenes play out in series of pictures caught with video camera traps she had actually planted in Tasmanian wilderness:
“Although we need to remember, feral cats in Australia – while they are very different behaviourally to pet cats in most senses, they’ve never seen a human before and they’re terrified of our presence – they are still at the end of the day the same species of cats we have at home, so they’re going to play when they have the opportunity,” Alexandra says.
So, why did she plant these video camera traps? Let’s start from the start.
Earlier this year, Alexandra set out to discover which lures are most efficient at bring in feral cats to walk in front of video camera traps.
Images caught by these video camera traps are utilized by land supervisors to count the variety of cats in a location. These numbers are utilized to keep track of whether control procedures are working.
“So you can use technology like camera traps to get an idea of how many individuals you have, it’s really useful technology,” says Alexandra.
But, naturally, for video camera traps to work, the cats in fact require to walk in front of them. So lures are utilized to draw in the cats.
“I don’t want land managers who are busy trying to fix the cat problem wasting their time putting out lures that aren’t going to work. So I started this experiment for that purpose.”
Alexandra set 64 traps throughout 4 various grid places within Tasmania’s southeastern rain forests, turning 4 various kinds of lure:
- Food lure: a cage of meat (wallaby organs)
- Smell lure: tuna oil
- Visual lure: a plume boa
- Null lure: simply an empty post
“Lo and behold the feather boas were actually the most effective,” Alexandra says.
“I didn’t actually believe the plume entices would be that efficient. I didn’t believe the cats would care.
“And I thought they had better things to do than be playing with feathers!”
Crunching the numbers
With the four-month experiment now finished, Alexandra verifies the chances of identifying a cat at a cam trap “increased fivefold when using feather boas as compared to using no lure, and fourfold for food as compared to using no lure”.
“However, if Tasmanian devil activity increased as a result of that food lure, then the odds of detecting a cat at a site halved as compared to if we had used no lure.”
This is where it gets back at more fascinating…
Trickier in Tasmania
Alexandra discusses that, while the plume boas were most efficient in Tasmania at bring in feral cats, a meat lure might be simply as efficient on the mainland.
“They [meat lures] can work in arid parts of Australia but it gets a little trickier in Tasmania because we also have native carnivores, including the amazing scavenger, the Tasmanian devil,” she says.
“There’s research study out of the University of Tasmania that cats and devils prevent each other – so if we start putting meat in front of our cams to tempt cats to see if they exist, could we in fact be shooting ourselves in the foot since devils are far much better at discovering meat than cats are, so what if we’re in fact simply bring in devils, and because sense, preventing cats?
“So, it’s a bit trickier than the mainland.”
Other animals, consisting of eastern and spotted-tailed quolls, rats and Tasmanian devils were drawn to the meat entices.
Curious locals
While the focus of the experiment was on feral cats, some native types supplied Alexandra with some light home entertainment along the method.
“Pademelons weren’t included in my analysis… but I couldn’t help but enjoy going through all the images of them playing with the feather boas. They were insatiably curious. None of the other macropods did that.”
Alexandra shares a specific story that actually moves the heartstrings:
“There was one pademelon that every night for a week came back and played and cuddled with the feather boa. Then you see an image of me coming in and removing the feather boa, and there’s a little sequence of the pademelon back the next night looking around really disarrayed because its toy is gone!”
The besotted pademelon.
A wedge-tailed eagle likewise connected with the plume boa.
“Where these cameras were deployed is mostly dense canopy cover, but there was one lure I put out in an open space,” discusses Alexandra.
“The images showed a juvenile wedge-tailed eagle come down in front of the camera, attack the feather boa, then he stomps around the site and peers into the camera. It’s almost like he’s seen the camera and is saying ‘is this a joke to you? I’m trying to find food!’”
The annoyed wedge-tailed eagle.
Alexandra says catching these pictures of native wildlife was not simply enjoyable, however will likewise be practical to science.
“It’s so helpful. At completion of the day we’re getting rid of cats from the environment to safeguard our native wildlife.
“So if we can also, as a by-product of this experiment, find ways to better monitor our natives as well, and get more pictures of them to measure their recovery or how their populations are changing in response to all the hard work we’re doing, then all the better!”
