Are cats actually effective at pest control or is that cat propaganda? How would cats operate in these societies?
I know they can catch pests but are they effective at controlling them? Maybe they will limit the growth of pests, so better than nothing. Most cats catch for fun rather than food I think
Maybe we had much more cats around for this purpose, if so I'd imagine there is some archeological proof.
> Most cats catch for fun rather than food I think
The hunting trigger is only loosely connected to hunger — they don't get hungry then go out to hunt, they'll often see a hunting opportunity and go for it, eating the result partially/totally/not as needed. In a situation with abundant prey this will look like they are mostly hunting for “sport”.
I assume this comes from hunt availability/success being intermittent: it is better to slightly over-hunt (and slightly overeat) to keep reserves up for a lax period that might be coming.
They say that a fed cat is a better mouser, and this might be why. A truly hungry cat will prowl less to conserve energy so have less opportunistic encounters with prey.
>Are cats actually effective at pest control or is that cat propaganda?
Yes. Have you never heard of a barn cat? Until recently pretty much ever commercial or industrial facility large enough to have its own maintenance department typically had one or more.
>How would cats operate in these societies?
Just like a barn cat. Leave out starvation rations for it and it'll hunt for the rest.
Catching for fun rather than food actually increases their mouse-hunting potential. With fun as a motivator, they can catch a lot more mice than they have the appetite to eat.
I mean, you don't need archeological evidence given that there's a vast amount of historical evidence of cats being kept for pest control as well as companionship. Even the Western world was largely agrarian just a hundred years ago! And farm cats are still a common thing. Free-roaming cats are also a massive threat to bird populations in many places – cats are just very effective predators and birds reproduce much slower than mice and voles.
I believe the royal society for the protection of birds studied whether cats are a threat to bird populations and concluded that they really aren't. Obviously cats do kill birds, but overwhelmingly the major threat to birds is habitat loss caused by humans. Also, cats kill rodents, which indirectly helps birds because rodents are a big threat to bird populations, because rats take eggs from their nests. In fact, cats preferentially kill rodents. Something like 90% of their diet will typically be rodents. Birds, for them, are only opportunity kills. In other words, cats are an easy scapegoat because they quite visibly do kill birds, but humans (as is usually the case) are the true underlying problem.
It really depends on the region. Island populations are disproportionately at higher risk to eradication by cat due to the difficulty or impossibility in replenishing the population from outside/neighboring populations.
I know they can catch pests but are they effective at controlling them? Maybe they will limit the growth of pests, so better than nothing. Most cats catch for fun rather than food I think
Maybe we had much more cats around for this purpose, if so I'd imagine there is some archeological proof.