ABSTRACT
There are large variations in the relations between man and domestic cats. Some cats are managed very intensively and are kept in isolation from the outside world. Such cats are of no ecological interest and will not be dealt with here. Most domestic cats, however, have at least some degree of freedom of movement. Some cats turn “wild” and become independent of any certain human “owner”. In some areas, self-maintaining feral populations of domestic cats have developed, especially in areas where they have been introduced recently, e.g., Australia, New Zealand, and a large number of oceanic islands. Interviewing people in households about their cats is both a less reliable and also a much more demanding task in towns, and especially in large cities, than it is on the countryside. Also, trapping in towns is difficult to perform in a systematic way. Therefore, base census in towns on sightings.
