It's official - cats are rubbish at catching rats

[UM-Bot]

A new study has cast doubt on the practice of releasing cats in to cities to help curb rat populations.

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/321948/its-official--cats-are-rubbish-at-catching-rats

[RoofGardener]

I'm not surprised. Rats can be quite big and nasty, and could seriously injure a cats... if only through an infected bite. 

Cats know this. 

Edited September 30, 2018 by RoofGardener

[Space Commander Travis]

It's true. There was a rat out by the garage once this summer, and my friend Ginger Cat (the ginger Cat),who pops up when he wants some chicken, did what he usually does to any interloper, which is to give it a Look. Rats, however, seem to be immune to Looks. 

Edited September 30, 2018 by Vlad the Mighty

[Troublehalf]

Rats are too big for most cats to bother with. Also the fact they're at a waste disposal site brings this to mind; are the cats actually hungry? If this is a waste disposal site, there must be food for them to eat of some sort. While cats will obviously chase rodents if their instincts kick in, I suspect a group of hungry cats would make a much more concerted effort to catch the rats.

Releasing cats to deal with the problem probably won't work if the cats have a source of food that is easier and less risky for them to come by. My cat catches on average a mouse a day; that I know of (as in, she brings in). She has caught rats and squirrels. She isn't hungry, but most mice are so small that I doubt it'd touch the sides so to speak, so it's not a food issue (though there is taurine in mice, I believe, which might be instinctively why she does it).

There are too many rats for cats to deal with anyway. To fully remove rats you'd have to find a way to kill them, and only them, via some controlled plague (how poetic it would be too!). But if films have taught us anything, the rats will become immune to the plague in 10 years and they'll become SUPER RATS and we'll need to make another plague and so on so forth, like antibiotic resistant bugs. Or, the plague mutates and kills humans. I don't think using prides of cats to deal with rats is gonna work. Stuff like ladybugs to control aphids can work, but this is bit too far beyond.

The only way I can think of this being done is offering a reward for X amount of pest/wild rats killed. A bit like how boars in USA are considered pest and bounties are offered. Throughout history it's often been the case, you start offering money to remove something and people will get involved. For every 100 rats confirmed to be wild/pest rats (rather than bred in some guys basement) you get $10 or something. Bit like recycling bottles and such.

Edited September 30, 2018 by Troublehalf

[Minimalists]

34 minutes ago, RoofGardener said:

I'm not surprised. Rats can be quite big and nasty, and could seriously injure a cats... if only through an infected bite. 

Cats know this. 

Not only that there is the serious threat of rabies.....

[cyclopes500]

The present day cat is different to the one of the past. They're like humans. They get their food from a different and easier to catch source. Namely tins in the supermarket. Once they've had a meal they save energy by relaxing. Also they're all neutered and don't have a family to support. I mean imagine what we'd be like if we had to run after the tins inside Croydon Sainsbury's and chuck magnetic spears all over the shop floor. The trollies would need lids everything or the tins would escape. Thousands of years ago we had to run after our food like the cat did. Lastly supermarkets much to my amazement don't sell tinned rat flavor cat food yet they do rabbit. I've tried. Again I asked someone behind the meat counter the other day. Do you sell rat meat? First they look at me and my mustache and then send me to the reptile shop. Sadly to bring the fire back into the present day moggy we'd need to put paper cat food brand labels around rats necks. Its not an impossibility though. I've glued some paper ring snares to a wall with rat trails along the side and it does actually seem to work.

['Walt' E. Kurtz]

Nae  they can catch it if they want 

[Habitat]

I recall seeing a doco about the siege of Leningrad, where it was said a large number of cats were amongst the first things brought in, when the siege was lifted, to control the rat population that had exploded in the beleaguered city. It doesn't require a lot of imagination to realise what those rats might have been eating. 

[TripGun]

In other news, Lions seem to be effective keeping everything off the street.

[Eldorado]

5 hours ago, TripGun said:

In other news, Lions seem to be effective keeping everything off the street.

I can vouch for that.  (My emotional support animal is a big Siberian tiger)

[UFOwatcher]

I used to have a cat that delighted in laying dead mice at my feet and meow. It received praise from me and a pat on the head but I guess not enough to bring me a rat.

[aztek]

cats do not attack adult rats, but small young rats are not safe from cats,  which is also very useful, dead young rat will not become big adult rat

[Katniss]

About two years ago my tuxedo cat caught two large rats and brought them near my back porch. She didn't bother to eat them, but just laid them there. I don't know why. Because she usually eats any type of rodent. So the next day my ex-boyfriend scoop them up with a shovel for me and tossed them into the woods across the gravel road I live on. That took care of that, but unfortunately she got fleas from catching those rats. God! It seemed like it took forever to get rid of those things from her thick fur and the carpet in my house. But I did it! Somehow.