Diet and Predators
Feral cats in Australia prey on a variety of wildlife. In arid and semi-arid environments, they eat mostly introduced European rabbits and house mice; in forests and urbanised areas, they eat mostly native marsupial prey (based on 22 studies summarised in Dickman 1996). In arid environments where rabbits do not occur, native rodents are taken. Birds and reptiles form a smaller part of the diet.
Feral cats may be apex predators in some local ecosystems. In others, they may be preyed on by feral dogs, dingoes, coyotes, wolves, bears, cougars, leopards, bobcats, lynx, hyenas, fishers, crocodilians, snakes, foxes and birds of prey.
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Famous quotes containing the word diet:
“I learned from my two years’ experience that it would cost incredibly little trouble to obtain one’s necessary food, even in this latitude; that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain health and strength.... Yet men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)