Long-distance movements of feral cats in semi-arid South Australia and implications for conservation management

Abstract

Movements that extend beyond the usual space use of an animal have been documented in a range of species and are particularly prevalent in arid areas. We present long-distance movement data on five feral cats (Felis catus) GPS/VHF-collared during two different research projects in arid and semi-arid Australia. We compare these movements with data from other feral cat studies. Over a study period of three months in the Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park, 4 out of 19 collared cats moved to sites that were 31, 41, 53 and 86 km away. Three of the cats were males, one female; their weight was between 2.1 and 4.1 kg. Two of the cats returned to the area of capture after three and six weeks. During the other study at Arid Recovery, one collared male cat (2.5 kg) was relocated after two years at a distance of 369 km from the area of collar deployment to the relocation area. The movements occurred following three years of record low rainfall. Our results build on the knowledge base of long-distance movements of feral cats reported at arid study sites and support the assertion that landscape-scale cat control programs in arid and semi-arid areas need to be of a sufficiently large scale to avoid rapid reinvasion and to effectively reduce cat density. Locally, cat control strategies need to be adjusted to improve coverage of areas highly used by cats to increase the efficiency of control operations.