A master's thesis study, led by former University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign graduate student Jeff Horn, tracked 42 feral and pet cats as they collectively roamed more than 6,000 acres over the course of two years.
Radio telemetry and movement sensors gave the researchers a pile of interesting data. The largest range for a single cat belonged to a feral male that claimed 1,351 acres of room to roam. Pet cats tended to keep things much closer to home.
Up till this point, most of my other cat knowledge came from that long-running broadway musical...uh...what's it's name...
Oh! Right! West Side Story!
Those cats sure did want to live in America.
Sources:
1. Sensor setup stalks wandering house cats for study [CNET]
2. Researchers track the secret lives of feral and free-roaming house cats [News Bureau | Illinois]
3. Tiger and Scaredy Cat...Spring Time [yngrich]
