Feral Cat’s Impact on Palm Beach, Florida

Feral Cat’s Impact on Palm Beach, Florida
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Feral Cat’s Impact on Palm Beach, Florida
Cats make great pets and remain ideal companions for individuals both at home and in the workplace. They offer love and affection to owners just like other pets like dogs. What makes cats outstanding is their hunting skills, making them perfect for keeping the home free from unwanted pests like mice. Their presence alone is sufficient to keep some rodents away from the house. Domesticated cats are those that are owned and cared for by humans. While domestic cats are beneficial to humans, they pose a danger when roaming freely in the wild. Feral cats operate in the wild and can survive without contact with humans. These cats can be found roaming in cities, farm areas, and towns. Feral cats originate from stray or abandoned pets. In the absence of human contact, feral cats revert to a wild state and make colonies where food is available. A majority of the animal control agencies are mandated to deal with dogs as opposed to cats. Such a move has made feral cats untouchable for a long time as their populations continue to increase and harm both wildlife and humans. The presence of feral cats in Palm Beach, Florida, has negatively impacted the health aspects of the population, environment, and society, thus managing their high population through the Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) method.
Feral cats take a toll on the native wild populations because of direct predation and competition. Cats are instinctive predators and can hunt effectively as other wild ancestors. Even the well-fed cats continue to hunt for more prey. Their desire to hunt makes them a threat to native wildlife whenever they can roam freely outdoor. While cats can consume plant material, they are more dependent on consuming a high protein diet (Lepczyk & Duffy, 2017). Cats are “surplus killers” because they kill more than they can consume. Feral cats tend to kill for fun, then abandon the dead animal for other predators. Leaving some of the prey uneaten means that more small animals and birds are wasted. For domesticated cats, surplus killing is not a problem because it occurs in few instances. According to Hatley (2003), cats kill more than a billion small mammals and millions of birds annually. For the feral cats, the increasing population implies that more prey will be killed and left uneaten.
Feral cats can spread diseases to other wild animals and humans. For instance, rabies is more common among cats than dogs and cattle (Singh et al., 2017). Rabies affects the central nervous system, and it is transmitted mainly via bite wounds. Another disease is toxoplasmosis and is transmitted to other animals and when humans contact food or water contaminated with cat faces (Singh et al., 2017). Toxoplasmosis, in ...