behaviour of strays

Question
Hello Ali
I help maintain a local Lost& Found Register. Thinking about keeping records and assisting people in searching for their missing cats, I have been wondering what happens to strays which are not found. Some will find a home when they turn up in someone's garden but others must scavenge long term and end up feral. Do you know of any research into the probable behaviour of long-term strays? Do they stay around the area where they were lost? Do they stay for a while, then move further afield? if you could point me in the direction of useful research I would be grateful

Answer
Gina,

Some cats will develop fair sized territories of up to a couple of miles while others will stay fairly close to where they went missing. Cats that have been abandoned don't actually become feral, they may become fearful of people and mistrust them, but on some level these cats still know that they have lived with humans and had their basic needs (food, water, attention, shelter, etc) met. A feral cat is actually a cat that is a wild animal - these cats have never actually had human contact and they view every person as a potential predator. These cats will not usually allow human contact, however some of these feral cats end up being fed by human volunteers over long periods of time. Sometimes truly feral kittens will take a leap of faith and choose a human caregiver. Nobody is sure why this happens for some cats and not others. As far as your search for research regarding the long term behavior of lost or abandoned cats that end up fending for themselves on the streets I haven't heard of any research being done. There are certainly anecdotal stories about cats who end up travelling thousands of miles back home when their human caregivers move or place them in the care of family or friends for awhile. If you do happen to come across formal research on this issue I would certainly be interested in hearing about it. Based on my experience feeding feral and stray cats I would guess that there are a few factors that determine whether or not any given cat will stay close to home. Things like whether or not a cat is spayed or neutered, how dominant or submissive they are, whether or not they have been declawed and for lost or abandoned cats the circumstances that led up to them being lost or abandoned would probably all be important factors. Obviously a sterilized, declawed and submissive cat would probably be less likely to challenge other cats already in the area and he/she may set off to find his/her own territory away from where they originated from. I would think that a dominant, intact cat with claws and the willingness to fight would be able to defend his position and would probably stay close to home. As I mentioned before - this is a guess not formal research.