As predators, most domestic cats retain a high prey drive
THE KERGUELEN ISLANDS LIE DEEP IN the southern Indian Ocean about halfway between Madagascar and Antarctica. The average annual temperature is 4.5˚C, wind speeds reach up to 150kph and it rains or snows for 285 days a year. Like South Georgia or the Falklands, which are on a similar latitude, the archipelago is ideal for albatrosses, petrels and other seabirds to raise their chicks in the absence of ground predators.
“Cats have been linked to the severe decline or extinction of 30 species of forest birds in Hawaii”
Or it used to be. Incredibly, despite the harsh climate that is about as far removed from their Middle Eastern origins as can be imagined, domestic cats survive on
