Where Do the Cats Go?

Researchers at the University of Illinois, no doubt needing to understand more about the evil familiars that aid them in their demonic attempts to dominate the world and keep all the chocolate chip cookies for themselves, put some radio collars and trackers on feral cats and outside house cats in order to determine what kind of area they hung around in and where they went.

They did this because while "We go wherever we darn well please, monkey-boy, and we are 12 pounds of nap-taking death if you get in our way" is accurate, it is not very scientific. One feral tom had a range of almost 1,400 acres, in a variety of environments in and around Champaign, Illinois. See "darn well please" note above.

The house cats allowed to roam outside, on the other hand, generally had ranges of about five acres. Researchers think this may be because cats know if you wander away too far, humans will forget how often they should feed you, not being too bright of a species, dontcha know (If opposable thumbs are so stinking great, why are you bringing me food, eh?)

In a finding that should surprise absolutely nobody, the tracking devices revealed that the pet cats were either asleep or in low activity (daydreaming about slow, fat mice) 97 percent of the time. But even the feral cats, who have disdained the idea of training humans to feed them as not worth the effort, were asleep or in low activity 86 percent of the time. The only primate that approaches this level of sedentary activity is a teenager during summertime daylight hours.

Researchers also noted that even the feral cats were usually pretty close to a building of some kind. One suggested that this fact showed the feral animals still had some dependence on human beings.

You keep thinking that, monkey-boy.