Syd Curtis wrote:
>
> Thank you Wim,
>
> The figures that stuck in my mind from years ago for
> feral
> cats killed in an outback New South Wales N P were that several were
> somewhere in the 15 to 20 kg range, but this seemed so enormous I
> didn't
> trust my memory and hoped someone on birding-aus might have had a
> record of
> the data. Maybe they really were that size.
>
> I reckon I'd rather tangle with a dingo than a 15 kg feral cat!
>
> Syd Curtis
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
> on 13/8/01 11:19 PM, Wim Vader at wrote:
>
> > At 23:05 13.08.01 +0800, you wrote:
> >
> >> My thanks to Bob Forsyth (at <>) who
> supplied
> >> (12/8/01 5:17 PM) some very interesting net sites re feral cats. I
> found
> >> the material from the Commonwealth's Environment Australia
> particularly
> >> interesting and informative.
> >>
> >> And http://www.aiheu.org/catpix/feraldomesticcat.html while
> not
> >> providing data on the size of feral cats in Australia did come up
> with the
> >> general advice that in the wild domestic cats revert to the
> original wild
> >> type and such ferals can be up to 24 inches long for head/body,
> (plus 10
> >> inches of tail) and weighing up to 15 pounds. That makes for a
> pretty
> >> fearsome predator.
> >>
> >> Syd Curtis
> >
> >
> > A local cat made it into the newspaper for having killed a
> > dog. The proud owner boasted that the cat had recently brought home
> a
> > Peregrine falcon! And this particular cat, not even feral, weighed
> in at 16
> > KG!!
> >
> > Wim Vader, Tromsø
> > Museum
> > 9037 Tromsø, Norway
> >
> >
Some years ago a hefty nature-minded teenager told me about a huge feral
cat he and his grandfather had trapped and shot on family farm near
Seymour (Vic). They were convinced it had been taking newborn lambs.
Unfortunately he had no way to weigh the corpse, and the skin was very
knocked about by shot and didnt survive amateur tanning. What I recall
was a photo showing him holding it out in his arms. He said it was so
heavy that he had difficulty in supporting it on his forearms. The photo
(rather blurred) showed something certainly MUCH larger than our
domestic shorthair - who incidentally weighs 14 lb, a bit over 6 kg, in
full winter coat, less in summer.
I remember seeing that feral cat skin at Wyperfeld NP. It was very big
but the trouble is that cats wear their skins rather loose.
Anthea Fleming in Ivanhoe, Vic.
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
www.shc.melb.catholic.edu.au/home/birding/index.html
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send the message
"unsubscribe birding-aus" (no quotes, no Subject line)
to
|
