Notes on New Zealand mammals 5. How far did a neighbour's pet cat venture into Trounson Kauri Park?

摘要

Between January 1996 and May 2000 I led a team of researchers from the Department of Conservation studying the home range and spatial organisation of introduced predators in and around Trounson Kauri Park (Gillies et al. 2007). Our purpose was to describe the distribution of feral cats and mustelids before and during pest control operations there, and to provide site-specific information to assist managers in their efforts to control these animals.Trounson Kauri Park was surrounded by a network of kill traps to control cats and mustelids (Gillies et al. 2003). There was a neutered adult mate domestic cat ("Blue") living on a property 1.2 km from the park boundary. We included "Blue" in the study, for two reasons. We were interested in how far new cats might travel to replace those we killed, and "Blue's" owner had asked us to put a transmitter on this cat because it was often away from the house for periods of 2-3 days and she was concerned to know whether "Blue" might have been straying into the management area of the park.