Cats adapt their behaviour to suit 21st century life
The research aims to find out more about the way cats deal with sharing territory and challenges in their environment.
Cats are changing their behaviour to adapt to life in the 21st century, according to research by the BBC and Royal Veterinary College (RVC).
A new three-part BBC Two Horizon programme, Cat Watch 2014, aired for the first time on October 7. Reporting on the programme, the BBC says cats are learning to time-share territories with other cats, communicate better with their owners and kill less prey.
Richard Harvey, a PhD student at the RVC's Structure and Motion Laboratory, said: "It was really eye-opening to see the effect our cramped urban environments are having on the domestic cat, not only in terms of their reduced territory and ranging behaviour, but also on the occurrence of conflicts between cats forced to share ranges with multiple others."
The series compares the habits of city cats, farm cats and village cats in a bid to find out more about the way they deal with sharing territory and challenges in their environment.
"It was just incredible to see how different they were," said Mr Harvey. "The biggest difference was between the farm cats and the city cats. It was striking just how far the farm cats would travel and the areas they would cover compared to the relatively tiny distances the majority of the city cats covered."
For the research, the RVC used miniature versions of tracking collars designed to observe hunting behaviour in cheetahs, lions and leopards in South Africa. The adapted collars were attached to 100 cats for the college's latest research.
Mr Harvey added: "GPS collars designed and built by the RVC were used to interface with and trigger the ‘cat cam’ cameras, allowing us to capture some ground breaking footage of cat behaviour and interactions from previously unseen perspectives."
The final episode of Cat Watch 2014 will air tonight (Thursday, October 9). It will be shown on BBC Two at 8pm. The first two episodes are available on BBC iPlayer.
The BSAVA has opened submissions for the BSAVA Clinical Research Abstracts 2026.
