Talk:Feral cat/Archive 3

Proposed re-write
I put a tag on the article proposing a rewrite. I edited some sections the best I could with what I'm equipped to do (I came here on a mission from the Guild of Copy Editors). But I think the original editors of this piece should come in and clean it up. There are several issues that need working out. Namely:


 * Weasel words There are a lot of sentences that start with words like "many" "Some" and "most." If you're going to say that many cities have programs that allow feral cats to be hunted, be prepared to name one with citations.
 * Tone The sections of this article do not flow. It is obvious that different sections were written by different editors. Notice on Featured Article-class pieces that you can't tell that multiple writers have worked on the piece -- its tone is solid throughout.
 * POV issues Earlier posts on the discussion page described the piece as being American-centric. Now it reads Australia-centric. Feral cats are universal. This article can be written universally. Perhaps a section on America and a section on Australia are warranted? Another POV issue: It's obvious that cat lovers and cat haters have both worked on this piece. Both, when citing sources have valid points to make in the article. That said, a reader shouldn't be able to tell that the person who wrote a particular section loves or hates cats.
 * Citations, citations, citations There are a lot of "facts" on here that aren't backed up by citations to reputable sources.

Thoughts? Need further help? Let me know on my talk page. I'd be glad to help more with editing. AikiHawkeye (talk) 02:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Picture of feral cat in "Effects on wildlife" section
I took the picture of the cat with the mouse in his mouth. While he is certainly disagreeable and enjoys fighting, he is currently sleeping on my couch so I think that might qualify him to be domesticated (in the broadest sense). I recommend you use a more accurate photo and I'll update the tags associated with photo to avoid this confusion. lxowle (talk) 23:02, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmm, so it's an indoor/outdoor cat. I'm going to remove it for now. The topics this article covers is not very clear although I think it should include feral, stray and outdoor cats. All three can affect wildlife and "feral cat colonies" refers more to strays than true ferals. --Dodo bird (talk) 08:15, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Completely up to you all - I just wanted to let you know the cat is not wild. When you settle on a definition of feral, then you can decide whether you want the picture or not. lxowle (talk) 09:15, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it is pointless to post pictures of feral cats, as to the naked eye they look exactly the same as domestic ones (well, except the fact that domestic cats are usually over-weighted.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.87.1.172 (talk) 22:15, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

well, feral cats were ferocious, and you can get this wildness in their eyes, while house & stray cats were very tame and yes.. over weighted. So post a hissing feral cat is very appropriate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.165.236.46 (talk) 06:08, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Feral cats can be very calm and silent as long as you don't mess with them. Some of them will even seat patiently in your driveway waiting for you to bring them food. On other hand, any cat (feral or domestic) will hiss and even attack if it feels threaten, so I don't think a picture of a hissing cat represents a feral cat any better. I could post pictures of both feral and pet cats strolling in my backyard and you couldn't tell the difference.

Citation found?
The line "Conservationists argue that feral cats contribute to the killing of songbirds and endangered birds, with estimates that bird loss is at 100 million a year because of predation was marked as needing a citiation. I belive that this article U.S. Faces Growing Feral Cat Problem may be the source of this number. and have cited accordingly Vantar (talk) 00:32, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Paradox
"Stray cat" redirects here, yet the article says right at the beginning that the subject of the article is not to be confused with stray cats.--87.164.116.212 (talk) 21:28, 28 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I have just arrived here to mention the same thing. How does one undo a redirect? Or can only administrators do that? Rothorpe (talk) 02:37, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, you need an admin to get rid of a bad redirect. Instructions on how to do that can be found at Help:Redirect.--Seduisant (talk) 03:15, 5 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks - Rothorpe (talk) 17:17, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Feral PIGS prey on cats?!
I'm hardly an expert, but I somehow fail to see HOW that could possibly work. Cats are extremely agile and have lightning reflexes, while boars are fast to charge, but slow to turn. Furthermore, a boar would charge something threatening and standing taller than it, not a small animal. Aadieu (talk) 03:42, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I was just here to ask the same question. How can a feral pig prey on a feral cat??? Komodo boy  16  10:00, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Feral pigs are omnivorous like captive ones and like meat. Feral pigs/boars also use ambush tactics. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  10:18, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

So are cats susceptible to heat or not?
The main article on cats say this:

"For instance, cats are able to tolerate quite high temperatures: humans generally start to feel uncomfortable when their skin temperature passes about 44.5 °C (112 °F), but cats show no discomfort until their skin reaches around 52 °C (126 °F),[62] and can tolerate temperatures of up to 56 °C (133 °F) if they have access to water.[63]"

But this article on feral cats says this:

"Unlike common belief, all cats, whether feral, stray, or living indoors, are sensitive to conditions of cold and heat. [5] A cat’s normal body temperature is between 100.5 and 102.5 degrees Fahrenheit (38.2 and 39.2 Celsius). Cats do not sweat like humans do, so they may have difficulties in regulating their body temperature; cats typically regulate their body temperature through panting and licking their fur.[6]www.vetinfo.com Read more: Heat Stroke in Cats http://www.vetinfo.com/heat-stroke-in-cats.html Numerous cats living outdoors, whether feral or domesticated, die each year to heat stroke or hypothermia."

I think these two statements are rather contradictory. --Vin Kaleu (talk) 19:05, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * They are, and the former is the more correct; cats are genetically still desert animals. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  10:18, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Written by cat freaks?
This article is so biased and must be written by animal freaks, especially bunch of cats ladies, or even cats sissy men.

Any wild vicious animals can be tamed to some degree, but does it make an excuse for sparing feral cats' lives? not really, the only good feral cats were dead cats with .22 through their heads, it was how my grandparents doing it, and how my parents doing it, and I will do it without hesitation (so far I have shot 45 feral cats on my property)

Personally I don't have the time and resource to tame an extremely difficult wild animal as meanwhile, the feral cats were messing with my barn cats and harassing my hens. Shoot on sight, end of story. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.230.181.172 (talk) 14:56, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Invalid article
This article is a magnet for cat haters. There is no equivalent article for Feral Dogs which shows there is no will to run down dogs in the same way. WikiCats (talk) 12:56, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It also seems to attract it's fair share of cat defenders ;) Sabine's Sunbird  talk  23:07, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Neither of which makes it an "invalid article"; see WP:Deletion policy, User:WikiCats. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  10:18, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

NPOV dispute [-
"NPOV dispute [-

This article does not represent or attempt to represent a neutral point of view and in my view is overtly biased towards trap-neuter-return and utterly dismisses authorised culling - extermination of feral cat populations - other than to say "Low-level killing feral cats in open population areas will increase their population, due to dominant cats being targeted.[27]". My understanding is that TNR is is mainly done in pilot projects and is not the mainstream control and management approach, but that rather culling is the main approach. Therefore, a fair and reasonable discussion of culling, including efforts to eliminate entire feral cat populations through baiting to prevent species extinction due to cat predation, is required for this article to represent a neutral point of view. A highly controversial topic, but one that should not be controlled by one side of a debate.

I found this article is the most biased and erroneous topic on wiki.

As a cat rescuer myself, feral cats were never equivalent to stray cats, and they are truly wild beasts in the sense of temperament.

I felt that some of these sections belonging to a seperate topicstray cat.

Feral cat should be dedicated to un-tamable, very wild cats that were living in the wild. Well, they might be pets generations ago, but reverted to true wild status.

However, sometimes the line was hard to be drawn, there were cats had a brief contact with humans but still retain lots of wildness, or some stray cats reverted into wild status for a quite long period of time without human care.. but heck, I would still recommend clear this section solely for true wild feral cats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.165.236.46 (talk) 06:05, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It's been demonstrated, though, that feral cats, like virtual all wild animals, are in fact tamable. Tamable and fully domesticable are not synonyms. This split idea has come up before, but is never supported.  I can virtually guarantee that if it were split, WP:AFD or just general discussion at "Talk:Stray cat" would result in them merged back together, because there is no "bright line" that divides the two topics, and there are not enough sources that treat them separately to have two articles. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  10:26, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with the IP contributor.
 * You write that virtually all wild animals are tameable? Really?  I doubt this, in general.  Your claim sounds like original research to me.  Perhaps you refer to zoo animals, who merely grow used to the presence of humans?
 * I suggest that, for most people, a cat isn't truly tame unless it is willingly affectionate to the humans it lives with. It is my impression that this is only possible with cats that had affectionate contact with humans when they were young kittens.  Geo Swan (talk) 09:30, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
 * No, but there is a line of demarcation beyond which a kitten is too old to be domesticated and there is also a limit as to how tame a rescued feral kitten will ever be. I will relate anectdotal comments only, because I do not wish to search for RS. My cat was 'a stray' because she was hiding at all times beneath a storage shed but accepting food. She was a feral because she was already at 3 or 4 months entirely unsocial; hissy, lashing out and fear aggressive. On the basis that when a vet said she evidenced 'kneading' behaviour when captured and held, there was a prospect she could become a bit social 'for one person'. That one person was me. She lived a tame and happy life with me; ran to greet me with chirpy chitter, slept in my bed, watched baseball on TV in my lap. I tamed her, but she just could not relate to other humans. I agree with SMcCandlish that 'tamable' and "fully domesticated' are antonyms.  I disagree that this article can be thusly bifurcated.  Fylbecatulous talk 18:48, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Trap-neuter-return
I didn't edit the article because my POV isn't neutral (I think TNR projects are terrible for wildlife since they don't remove the cats that are eating so many birds and small mammals) but I think the statement below is less than neutral either. I'll have to look, but there are many studies that question TNR, not just one. I am writing to ask others that might be more neutral if they've read the citations 34-36 that this article uses. They are terrible! One says that TNR works to reduce the size of the cat colony but then states later that the building where most were living was demolished by the college and study volunteers adopted many kittens and cats. This is a bias! Were the cats just dispersed outside the study area after their home was demolished (seems likely)? Some reduction was because of adoptions, but once those research volunteers have all the cats they can hold, or the research is over and they leave, that influence is gone. I see no evidence that TNR had any effect. "While various long-term studies have shown TNR is effective in stopping the breeding of cats in the wild and reducing the population over time,[34][35][36] opponents of TNR frequently cite a study by Castillo (2003)[37] as evidence TNR does not work.[38]" Given that some cities have had TNR colonies for a decade or more, the onus showing it works seems to be on the TNR side.--Paddling bear (talk) 14:32, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * We have an entire and well-sourced and rather, if not perfectly, balanced article on this at trap-neuter-return. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  10:27, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I find the trap-neuter-return page far more biased than this page. I also note that Macquarie Island has, as of April 2014, been stabilized with the remaining problem introduced species removed. See: http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=394. G. Rising

Rainforest sustenance
i need to know what feral cats eat in the rainforest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.27.218.123 (talk) 20:52, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * When you find out, please add it to the article, with a reliable source. Just knowing about cats, we can safely surmise that their diet consists of small animals, such as frogs, rodents, birds, etc. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  10:26, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Written by cat fanatics
This article is written by cat fanatics who have had no real experience with feral cats, come to Australia and let me show you why they were defined as pests! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zhengjdc (talk • contribs) 13:27, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Just dropping hate-mail doesn't help. If you think you can improve the article with reliable sources about this viewpoint, please do so. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  10:26, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
 * This is a natural and normal problem for Wikipedia. Who has the time and dedication to work on articles about cats? Naturally, it is the people obsessed with cats. The most famous example of this issue was the icky situation related to Wikipedia articles about pedophilia. That one was big enough to draw serious attention from the people who actually operate Wikipedia, but random minor topics like "cats" will fly under the radar. Do what you can; I thank you for it. 208.118.25.22 (talk) 08:07, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

This paragraph needs serious cleaning. It's totally biased.
 * "In Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR), volunteers trap feral cats" : it adds nothing to the article to specify that people do this volutarily, but this wording is intended to get the reader's sympathy.
 * "TNR programs are only now being introduced", read : they should have been long ago.
 * "While various long-term studies have shown TNR is effective [...] opponents of TNR frequently cite a study by Castillo (2003)..." : the difference in the way the studies are presented to the reader speaks for itself (we have all of this evidence, they have this one study they keep using).
 * "While the United States Department of Defense does not formally advocate TNR, it does provide information to military installations on how to implement TNR programs." : this sentence is an argument ("the government is unofficially in favor of TNR"). Etc.

Finally, this small paragraph contains 15 citations. This is clearly opinion hammering. Consider for instance :


 * "Many humane societies and animal rescue groups of varying sizes throughout the United States have some type of TNR program."

This sentence in itself is fine (although "some type" could use clarification). But giving 3 citations for a sentence that is supposed to be a detail in the subsection of a small article?

I won't edit the article myself ; as you surely noted my english isn't that smooth. Bisouslove (talk) 15:26, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Objectivity
It seems to me that certain users forget that the purpose of Wikipedia articles is objective information. I have noticed that starting to slip with certain cat-lovers of the "all cats must remain indoors" turn-of-mind. If this is your position, there are many discussion groups on the internet that would welcome your contributions. Wikipedia articles are not the place for this.

Also, this particular entry, for whatever reason, appears to be a target for vandalism. It is up to responsible users, and honest unregistered editors, to remain vigilant. Colorado Confederate (talk) 06:24, 27 September 2011 (UTC)
 * But do note that views that are not friendly toward feral cats are not vandalism. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  10:26, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I myself am a bit of cat fanatic (I have 3), but I am also an native flora & fauna lover and a scientist. So I tend to use fact before emotion and I believe my view on feral cats is quite neutral. I have made some significant edits to the Australia section over the last day. It is still not perfect, the words need to flow more. I mainly fixed all the refs, as some were broken and others were just book refs that others could not view unless they had the book. The book refs could be found online so I linked the book refs to the online versions. What was interesting, is that after looking at these book references in the books, I realised that much of the text quoted in this wiki from the refs was the opposite of what was said! Here is an example of what I found in the wiki vs the ref it was linked to:

From the wiki: "Feral cats have been shown to cause an insignificant reduction in native mammal populations"

From the Ref: "Feral cats have been shown to cause a significant reduction in native mammal populations"

It seemed as if because nobody could check the refs unless they had the book, words were added or left out and things were heavily misquoted. Now that we have the refs linked to their online versions, I hope that the article can be improved even more. --Kelly2357 (talk) 21:46, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

New Research
This needs to be worked into the article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21236690 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.118.25.22 (talk) 08:02, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

"Stray" Feral Cats
This article suggests the following:

Stray cats = used to humans, but living in the wild due to abandonment or being lost. Feral cats = born in the wild, avoidant of humans.

I'm not going to do any original research, but in certain areas, the concentration of feral cats is high enough that many are indeed used to interacting with humans.

They are feral in the sense that they were born wild, but used to humans enough that they will interact with them to a degree, and may act more like traditional stray cats, even if they are wild-born.

Shouldn't this be addressed? 98.221.141.21 (talk) 07:03, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Feral Cat
Who was the cat expert who wrote this article? WikiCats (talk) 16:24, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

explanation
I replaced an image of a cat eating a bird with one of a kitten eating a rabbit, on the grounds that the first image might have been of a nice friendly house cat that nevertheless liked to hunt and kill birds. Nice friendly house cats that are nevertheless good hunters are not uncommon. The information template from the replacement picture implies the photographer had watched the feral cat make other kills, and had a good idea it was genuinely feral. Geo Swan (talk) 17:14, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * From the source url: "I see them struggling to procure sufficient food supplies on their own, I occasionally supplement their diet with reconstituted powdered milk and cottontail rabbits that are too big for them to hunt down on their own."--Dodo bird (talk) 01:56, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I didn't go to the original source page.  I think that comment confirms the kitten is a genuine feral cat -- even if she didn't catch the rabbit herself.
 * For what it is worth it wouldn't surprise me to learn that sufficiently motivated cats could capture prey of almost equal size. I used to live next to a conservation area, and my neighbour told me her lovely but tiny cat used to regularly bring home rodents that were "almost as big as she is".  Geo Swan (talk) 08:37, 25 February 2014 (UTC)


 * That photo does not represent predation. It's misleading to use it this way. --Dodo bird (talk) 03:31, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Article bias/factual accuracy - e.g. health and age of feral cats in managed colonies
I note the lengthy discussion in this "talk" page about the article being biased. Sadly that issue has not been resolved, and appears to have swung in the other direction, citing research that has been challenged and information that is of questionable accuracy. Even the "did you know" entry mentioned at the top here is inaccurate; that "the average lifespan of a feral cat who survives kittenhood is two years, compared to 16 years for house cats." An early reference for health and aging of feral cats in managed colonies is Jenny Remfry, Feral Cats in the United Kingdom (JAVMA Vol. 208, No. 4, Feb. 15, 1996, pp. 520-523), available at pp. 24-27 of "AVMA Animal Welfare Forum: The welfare of cats", Nov. 3, 1995. Page 522 of article, or p. 26 of the link, discuss age and health of cats studied.

Much work to be done. In the interim, I'm going to respectfully add a warning at the top of the page:

Canadianknowledgelover (talk) 19:00, 19 July 2014 (UTC)
 * It's not acceptable to tag an article without examples of the alleged problem (and tags are not added to talk pages). Doubt about a single statement on the average lifespan does not justify a tag, nor does vague mention of "lengthy discussion". What text in the article is an NPOV problem? Why? What statements, apart from a single claim on lifespan, are disputed? Johnuniq (talk) 01:56, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, Johnuniq. I didn't see your reply until today (August 1). Articles are always tagged without examples of the problems in the text of the article. The place for issues to be discussed is the talk page, not the article itself. The issues need fleshing out. I gave one example, the issue of the health of feral cats, the average lifespan, how old they can get in managed colonies, with a link to one scientific article about it. More to come. Canadianknowledgelover (talk) 17:21, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
 * What are the problems in the current article that warrant two tags on the article? Johnuniq (talk) 23:53, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

, I have removed the article issue tags, at least for now. With no identified problems to pin down what needs be worked on, this is just simply one editor's point of view. This article is well watched over by a faithful WikiProject. Every change is noticed. Hence, the protection level, since many changes are not for the better. Because you are obviously an autoconfirmed editor, you are free to edit the article. Another way, of course, is to discuss issues on this talk page and reach some concensus with other contributors...All the best! Fylbecatulous talk 14:32, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Autoprotect feature
The autoprotect feature was put in place to address problematic editing by some people. It means that only people who have confirmed accounts that have been active for a period of time and have 10 edits under their belt can edit the article.

There are many issues that need addressing in the article that may be helped by having it more accessible to editing. I've removed the feature for the time being. We can watch the page closely for problematic edits and deal with them; if necessary returning the autoprotect function. This is the code for the feature, if it is needed again (it's only visible if you click on "edit"):

Canadianknowledgelover (talk) 17:14, 1 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Spend a bit of time reading WP:PROTECT and getting at least a basic idea of how that mechanism works. Only admins can change protection status on articles, but any editor can make a request for an admin to do so. It won't happen by simply deleting templates that have nothing to do with article protection, no matter how intense that effort. Dl2000 (talk) 23:24, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification, D12000! Was a bit frustrating seeing it apparently reversed and then reversed today. Don't mind so much now. :) Canadianknowledgelover (talk) 00:41, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Lifespan and survival section
I'm going to delve into the Lifespan and Survival section. I have some major issues with its accuracy, which are set out below.

Levy article - what does it stand for?
The current text references Levy's 2003 study (found online here: "Evaluation of the effect of a long-term trap-neuter-return and adoption program on a free-roaming cat population", Julie K. Levy et al., JAVMA, Vol 222, No. 1, January 1, 2003.) as the source for a median age of feral cats of 4.7 years, with a range of 0-8.3 years. This is an inaccurate representation of what that article says.

To the contrary, the article stands for the proposition that the feral cat lifespan compares favourably with that reported for pet cats. The article says, at p. 45, "Despite widespread concern about the welfare of free-roaming cats, many of the animals in our study survived for a number of years. Most cats (83%) still remaining on site at the end of the observation period had been present for > 6 years. This compares favourably with the mean lifespan of 7.1 years reported for pet cats, particularly as almost half of the cats in our study were first observed as adults of unknown age."

Levy et al. discuss the same study in a later paper, providing another point of comparison: "Most (83%) cats still remaining on site in 2002 had been present for > 6 years. This compares favourably with the finding that only 42% of the pet cat population in the United States is more than 5 years old."

It took me some time to find where the 4.7 number came from with its range of 0-8.3 years. Table 2, "Disposition of 155 free-roaming cats included in a trap-neuter-return and adoption population control program" (on page 43), lists the "Duration on Campus" of cats with a number of outcomes. Cats who died, only 6% of the cats studied, were shown at a median of 4.7 years duration on campus, ranging from 0.3-8.3 years. Remaining cats (15% of the cats studied) were listed as having been on campus for a median length of 6.8 years. The largest group of cats, 47% of them, were adopted out, and their median time on campus was 0.4 of the year. This table is not an indicator of the median age of the cats but the length of time that the cats were found on campus, a length of time that could well predate the age of the cats.

It is irresponsible to use this figure of 4.7 in the way it has been used. I'm going to revise the reference to the article providing more explanation of what the article says about feral cat lifespans.

How long do pet cats live?
The Levy article gave 7.1 years as the average lifespan for pet cats. This was based on research done in 1984 by Nasser et al. (abstract: "Study of the feline and canine populations in the greater Las Vegas area.".

This is not the figure currently cited on this page, which now says: "in captivity, an average life expectancy for male indoor cats at birth is 12 to 14 years, with females usually living a year or two longer."

When reading the article referenced for those age estimates (found online here: "Some nutritional aspects of ageing in dogs and cats", E.J. Taylor et al., Proceedings of the Nutrition Society (1995), vol 54, pp. 645-656.), again it does not say what it is supposed to have said. In their study researching appropriate foods for aging cats and dogs, the authors mention that cats "have an average life expectancy of 14 years yet the oldest recorded cat is known to have lived for 36 years" (page 1). The reference given for these facts is a study of J.E. Mosier done in 1978. The average lifespan is simply given as 14 years; not 12-14, not with females living longer, and based on a source from 1978.

A further reference is provided in the Wikipedia article "Cat" (under "health") for the comment that females usually live a year or two longer: a book by Dan Poynter (2002). The Older Cat: Recognizing Decline and Extending Life (2nd ed.). Santa Barbara, CA: Para Publishing. p. 25. ISBN 1-56860-076-3. Poynter is not a scientist or cat expert, but a writer and publisher who has self-published many volumes of books under his publishing house Para Publishing, this one included. Even if this author is read accurately as stating the lifespan differences between females and male cats, this does not seem to be an authoritative source for the topic. I doubt that there is any evidence that female cats live longer than males.

The "Cat" article adds that "feline life expectancy has increased significantly in recent decades", referring to an article by Kraft, W. (February 1998). "Geriatrics in Canine and Feline Internal Medicine". European Journal of Medical Research 3(1–2): 31–41. ISSN 0949-2321. However, nothing is really indicated as to the starting point or any final conclusions on the actual lifespan of cats. At the article abstract (unfortunately truncated; found here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9512965), the author noted that as for humans, at least in developing countries, the life span of dogs and cats seems to have increased in the last 15 years, citing a number of earlier studies. The paper intended to "examine a population of dogs and cats to find out, if the life span of these companion animals really increases and the consequences it may have for medical care." It would be interesting to see the article itself to see if we can get further updated information estimating the average lifespan of pet cats.

I located some more recent estimates in the Banfield Pet Hospital's State of Pet Health Report in 2013. Using data of the cats over one year old euthanized in its over 800 animal hospitals in 43 U.S. states, they came up with an average lifespan of 12.1 years (ranging from 10.7 years in Delaware to 12.7 years in Massachusetts) (p. 1). They said the estimate had risen one year since 2002 (p. 2). They added that neutered male cats live 62% longer than unneutered males, and spayed female cats live 39% longer than unsprayed cats (p. 2). A limitation of this data is that it includes only cats receiving medical services (and from this provider); it wouldn't include cats dying of old age at home, killed on the road, or those without any medical intervention, but it is interesting and offers something more current than other studies mentioned.

For the time being, maybe we don't have to provide a definitive age for pet cats. That is not what this article is about. I will work around it using the comparisons that Levy gives.

Are there old feral cats?
These are references of feral cats dying of old age in managed TNR programs. I will add references to them in the article. I'm also going to talk about feral cats not assisted by humans, for completeness. The information is that even feral cats not being assisted by managed programs are found in surprisingly good physical condition, one study finding they were "generally lean but not emaciated".

The photograph
There is a photo in the section of an emaciated stray cat feeding her kittens; I'm including it here: I don't see how it fits into the article. It adds nothing to the discussion about the lifespan and survival of a feral cat. I'm taking it out, but it's here if anyone wants to see it.

Effect on wildlife
I added a section on the U.K., and added information from biologist Roger Tabor.

I cleaned up the paragraph on the Loss et al 2013 study - no longer so "recent" - referring to things the article actually says vs. what a news report says about it. Also added a link to the article itself, in a named reference.

I added a paragraph with arguments counter to the study and other studies that estimate high predation by cats on wildlife in the U.S.

References to studies from the 1900s
I have issues with this couple of paragraphs:


 * The impact of domestic cats on wildlife is a century-old debate between passionate cat lovers and those of conservation and scientific beliefs. In a 1916 report for the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture titled The Domestic Cat: Bird Killer, Mouser and Destroyer of Wildlife, noted ornithologist Edward Howe Forbush stated in the preface:


 * The report cited Extinct Birds, published in 1905 by zoologist Walter Rothschild, who stated, "man and his satellites, cats, rats, dogs, and pigs are the worst and in fact the only important agents of destruction of the native avifaunas wherever they go." Rothschild gave several examples of cats causing the extermination of some bird species on islands.

Must we go so far back as 1916 ... basically probably the first historical evidence of someone who thought cats were an issue for wildlife in the US, but can't we get a little more current? The paragraph also says it's a debate between "passionate cat lovers" and then those other people: "those of conservation and scientific beliefs". Seriously, cat lovers can't be conservation oriented or scientific? This is rhetoric and doesn't belong in a serious article.

I think I will rephrase the Forbush reference, mentioning it as a historical thing.

But the next paragraph, that Forbush cited a book published in 1905 ... I don't see the utility of including that truly ancient reference. It mentions man, along with rats, dogs, and pigs destroying nature. Fairly motherhood sort of comment in my view. The part about giving examples of birds species being exterminated on islands could be interesting, but let's see the source! (And what page is it referenced on in the Forbush treatise, which is quite lengthy?) In any event, surely there is something better than a 1905 book for this information! I think it should be removed.

Endangered birds
The next paragraph makes this strong statement:


 * Cats are the sole threat to some bird species, such as Townsend's Shearwater, Socorro Dove, and the Marquesan Ground Dove, or the cause of outright extinction in other cases, notably the Stephens Island Wren.

I printed out the article referenced, Endangered Birds. It's a good article about the many threats to birds, especially habitat loss. I was hard-pressed to find references to cats as an issue. I finally found the reference on page 400 saying "cats alone are responsible for the plight of some species" and naming the three indicated here. This is in a paragraph about islands. Islands represent unique challenges for birds and a very different sort of situation than the national U.S. for example.

As for the Stephens Island Wren, there is no reference given for this comment. Again, it is an island issue. I found an online source talking about the wren's demise. It was noted that initially the population was decimated by the Pacific rat. Stephens Island had not been colonised by the rat and had a small remaining population. The final extinction is believed to have been domestic cats brought in by the lighthouse operator. This is not a source saying cats are the huge killers of this wren. http://www.arkive.org/stephens-island-wren/traversia-lyalli/ It needs to be discussed in the Islands section, if at all.

Control and management
I've been cleaning up the section. I went through it recently and added references where only dead links remained. In the process, I used information from the trap-neuter-return article and did a more comprehensive edit of the issues there, with references to a number of studies. I plan to add the highlights of what I found there, and just summarize them in this article, with a link to the TNR article as the main article on the subject.

Right now the animal population control article is given as a "see also". I will link it in the text, so we only have one article cited as the "Main" one for the section.

I'm changing the wording of the photo to "colony" rather than "clowder" as that is the main term in usage.

The Zaunbrecher article was cited as one of four references supporting that TNR reduces populations over time. As I wasn't able to read the article, I preferred not to include it. I think three solid references are enough.

Some edits were added a while back in a separate subsection here called "Rationale and effectiveness of TNR". The issues have been canvassed more fully in the TNR article, and I believe it's best to take them out now.

References

Canadianknowledgelover (talk) 23:32, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Foxes as predators
I doubt foxes prey on healthy adult cats, as they are similar sized carnivorans, otherwise, are there reliable sources of them doing so? Editor abcdef (talk) 08:30, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
 * A fox killing kittens is still preying on cats. Where does it say that it only counts if the prey is adult and healthy. --Dmol (talk) 08:43, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Misleading Comment
The final section, on ailments facing feral cats, ends with the somewhat odd statement "all of which are quite treatable", suggesting the ailments of feral cats can be remedied by human intervention. Given that the last two mentioned FIV and Feline Leukemia, are generally fatal and incurable, this seems an odd statement to make. (To be certain, since my last exposure to either was several years ago when I lost a cat to FIV, I checked the Wikipedia entries and see there are approved experimental treatments, but considering the mortality rates still hover around 30%-50%, the breezy "all of which are treatable" comment seems a bit overly-optimistic. Not to mention not exactly what one expects to find in an encyclopedia-type source. It has more of the sound of a fund raising brochure.) 76.111.27.52 (talk) 22:18, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

Number of wildlife killed by stray cats

 * A 2013 study by Scott R. Loss and others of the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service suggested that free-ranging domestic cats (mostly unowned) are the top human-caused threat to wildlife in the United States, killing an estimated 1.3 to 4 billion birds and 6.3 to 22.3 billion mammals annually.

Although quoted, these numbers seem ridiculously high. Considering there are no more than 100 million cats in the US (of which most are domestic and a large portion kept indoors), I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers in question were off by 3 orders of magnitude. 109.93.239.159 (talk) 19:26, 29 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Three orders of magnitude? Hmm, let's do a back of the envelope calculation and see.  If all 100M were domestic cats with outdoor privileges, the lower bound of 7.6B/year would amount to 6 kills per month per cat.  That sounds about right to me, given the number of dead birds dropped on the doorstep as presents (and who knows how many left out to rot that we never see).  However, not all 100M of them are allowed out, of course; I wonder what the percentage is.  However, we've assumed zero feral cats so far, and they have to eat to live, every day.  Their kill rate will be much higher than those gentlemen "sports-cats" who are just out there for fun and practice.  That 7B figure is starting to look kinda low to me, but more data on outdoor pets and the number of ferals would help. Mathglot (talk) 20:59, 15 July 2015 (UTC)


 * That wasn't too hard: around 70M feral cats in the US, lower than I thought, and "only" a billion or so prey. Mathglot (talk) 22:11, 15 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Feral cats don't live much outside of cities, and usually live off people's trash or food some leave for them. While both estimates are pretty vague you will agree there is a difference between the estimate of birds you quoted and the number above (1.3-4 billion). 178.221.125.66 (talk) 10:22, 18 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Of course feral cats live outside cities. You're confusing strays and ferals. --Dmol (talk) 10:42, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

References

Lede is self-contradictory, redundant, unclear and unsourced
The lede is a mess and needs a complete rewrite. First of all, it's self-contradictory: the first two sentences are in disagreement about the definition of a feral cat:
 * 1) A feral cat is a domesticated cat that has returned to the wild, or the descendants of such an animal
 * 2)  It is distinguished from a stray cat, which is a pet cat that has been lost or abandoned, while feral cats have never been socialized.

According to #1, some feral cats have been domesticated, but according to #2, they have never been domesticated. Can't have it both ways. (True, #2 says "socialized" not "domesticated", but if those two words mean two different things here, then that had better be very carefully explained, as to me, a "socialized" cat is a "domesticated" cat.)

The lede is also redundant. Compare sentences 1 and 3: Sentence 3 imparts nothing new, and merely duplicates what was already said before.
 * 1. A feral cat is a domesticated cat that has returned to the wild, or the descendants of such an anima
 * 3. The offspring of a stray cat can be considered feral if born in the wild

The last sentence is unclear (and arguably repeats for the 3rd time the comment about offspring): But careful--not the converse, though: all those cute kittens born at home to pampered cats raised in luxury--are they feral, too? What is this sentence trying to say? That all offspring of unaltered domestic cats are feral? (Uh, no.) That some are? (Maybe, in that case, which ones? How? In what parts of the world? Who says so?  We don't know.)
 * 4. In many parts of the world, feral cats are the offspring of unaltered domestic cats.

Finally, the WP:LEDE is supposed to summarize sourced information already given in the main body of the article, and almost none of it is. With respect to references, the summary may omit sources for a given claim only if the main body already has them. But if the body doesn't source a statement, then the lede must, and neither the definition, nor the claim in sentence 4 is sourced in the main body of the article.

Finally, imho the lede, and probably the first sentence, should say something like "always exhibit wild behavior" (or, conversely, "never exhibit domesticated behavior") and "have an abiding mistrust and fear of humans [and other animals]" which imho are both central to what a feral cat is, and, incidentally, is what distinguishes it from your human-loving stray just out for a couple of days walkabout.

The lede should also say something about terminology, possibly in a second paragraph, due to the possible confusion among the terms domestic and domesticated when discussing cats. Domesticated is an adjective that applies to various animals which have been tamed, while domestic cat is the common term for the specific species felis catus. So strictly speaking, a "domestic cat" can be a purring housecat sitting on your lap, or it can be feral, while a "domesticated cat" cannot be feral, by definition. Mathglot (talk) 20:12, 15 July 2015 (UTC)