Q:"Why is my cat a better hunter than my ferret?"
A: Because the cat comes in vison-enhanced models while the ferret only
comes in olfactory stock versions.
If you substituted polecats for ferrets, I don't think cats are better
hunters, per se. The family of weasels is one of the oldest group of
carnivores on the planet, they are clearly more diverse than the cats,
and probably can be considered as or more successful. I think the big
difference is in hunting methods between the cats and the weasels.
Before you can catch prey, you have to first detect it. The polecat or
ferret does that by wandering around, poking it's nose into every nook and
cranny it can find. If it detects prey--by smell--then it either captures
it in a short sprint, follows it into a burrow, or digs the food out with
carpet-rendering claws. The cat, on the other hand, uses those wonderful
eyes to first visually locate prey, then to guide it towards the capture.
Sure, the cat can use smell just as the polecat or ferret can use their
eyes, but clearly the polecat or ferret has a far greater dependence on
their sense of small than the cat, just as the cat has a far greater
dependence on their vision compared to the ferret.
Even so, I think I would give the nod to the ferret *except* for one little
complication; cats don't visually imprint on prey, but ferrets do smell
imprint on prey. Any animal the right size and moving the right speed will
set off the cat's hunting radar, and it sets out to kill it for consumption.
While ferrets may react with a hunting instinct to small objects moving at
specific speeds away from them, they may not recognize it as a food item.
Instead, they may capture or kill the prey, but not recognize it as food and
it either escapes or is left uneaten. Ferrets will only eat those animals
that *smell* like food, which is a remarkably limited choice if they eat
nothing but kibble, and a major reason they have such a limited life-span
when lost or abandoned in the woods.
One final comment about feral cats. There is a lot of paper devoted to the
effects of feral ferrets on the ecology of New Zealand, but not nearly as
much to feral cats. Personally, I think there are four reasons for this,
(although local scientists may protest). First, people are culturally
programmed to interpret one animal as "bad" and another as "good." For
example, wolves are bad because they eat sheep, but dogs (which are
domesticated wolves) are good because they bark and warn of danger, even
though they also eat sheep. This enculturation extends to scientists who
cannot look past the "feral" aspect and wrongly assume the ferret was not as
mush domesticated as man's best friend, even though there are hundreds of
reports that decry the destructive nature of feral dogs. Ferrets may be
seen as bad because they were used by poachers to hunt rabbit, or because
they can be little nippers if not properly trained. So ferrets are studied
because they are seen as bad animals of obvious destructiveness.
Second, people are accustomed to seeing stray cats and dogs about, and
always assume they are locally owned if spotted. If a ferret is spotted,
they immediately assume they are feral. I have come up against this problem
in dealing with the "feral San Juan Island" ferret myth. Because people
have "heard" there are feral ferrets on the islands, a spotted ferret is
interpreted as being feral, even though it may be a lost pet and dying of
starvation. A stray dog or cat is almost always seen as a pet out for a
walk.
Third, feral ferrets are easy to study compared to feral cats. Ferrets are
easy to catch, they pretty much stay on the ground, and they like to live
around human habitations. Feral cats use the trees for shelter, are much
harder to capture, and have a healthy fear of people. Its so much easier
to study the ferret, so more study gets done.
Finally, scientists support themselves through grants, and it is much easier
to get money to study the horrible "feral ferret" problem than the "feral
cat/dog" problem, which many people can't recognize as a problem at all.
The same thing can be said about government agencies, who justify their
budgets based on the problems they fight. I am convinced the reason the
CaCa Fishing Gestapo refuses to free the ferret is because they are afraid
of losing money from the legislature. After all, convincing the powers that
be that ferrets are a threat, getting money to fight them, and occasionally
arresting the poor housewife is a good way to fund office showers and
expense accounts. They are certainly not using the money to catch feral
ferrets, because there are none, either in CaCa Land or the rest of the New
World. Someone asked me if I found a CaCa Fishing Gestapo agent burning,
would I pee on them to put it out? I said no, because I would be afraid it
might taint the taste of the marshmellows.
Bob C and 22 MO Weesel Waskels
[Posted in FML issue 2416]
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