The Domestic Cat Monitoring and Awareness in Alice Springs program is wrapping up for another round and the cats are exhausted from all their hard work recording where they go and what they see. The tracker data has been through the wringer! Maps have been produced showing where the cats go and what their hotspots are. We will be running the timing of movements and distances through the calculator to get some statistics prepared. The final step in the process will be to collate the information and present this to the cat owners so they can see the results.

An additional monitoring round will take place in Tennant Creek in a couple of weeks if all goes to plan, with the intention of broadening the range of our community engagement. Several Tennant Creek residents with pet cats have offered to take part in the monitoring, with their data sneaking into the mix in the final couple of weeks of the funding round.

As a little taster of the data to come, this is the measured home-range of Possum, a young Tabby that spends a significant amount of time outside. Possum spends much of its time outside near the house (red hotspot) but the tracking data shows that Possum also spends a good proportion of his time near the main road, roaming in the riverbed and also in nearby bushland (90% of GPS fixes are within the green shaded zone). Not only does Possum roam on the large property, but he also visits neighbouring properties. Possum’s video surveillance and tracking data will be presented to his owner in the coming weeks as the project is wrapped up for another year.

Interested in having your cat tracked but you haven’t taken part in the monitoring yet? Land for Wildlife will look at continuing the monitoring process for members of the Land for Wildlife and Garden for Wildlife programs to engage with cat owners about responsible management of their free-roaming felines.

This project is supported by Territory Natural Resource Management, through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Programme.