DO CATS EAT BATS?! 🐈🦇
“Worldwide, cats kill an estimated 250,000 bats per year. Domestic cats who do not need bats for nutrition will hunt them for sport: since cats can hear their echolocation calls, they must make a tantalizing squeaky toy.
“Worldwide, cats kill an estimated 250,000 bats per year. Domestic cats who do not need bats for nutrition will hunt them for sport: since cats can hear their echolocation calls, they must make a tantalizing squeaky toy.
“Unfortunately, feline fun wounds bats so badly that they either die or fall victim to secondary predators, such as foxes in the UK. Feral cats hunt bats for food, as evidenced by a cat trapped and killed in rural New Zealand in 2010.
“Over seven days this cat had killed a total of 102 short-tailed bats, a species listed as ‘vulnerable’. The euthanized cat was pictured lying next to the depredated remains of some of the bats it didn’t quite manage to digest.
“So, there is a definitive answer to the question the adventurous Alice poses as she plunges down the rabbit hole, wondering if she will end up in Australia or New Zealand (the ‘antipathies’).
“Wishing her cat Dinah could be with her, she realizes that as she is currently airborne, Dinah wouldn’t be able to catch any mice, but she might be able to catch a bat. Only, Alice isn’t sure if cats eat bats, and as she falls ever deeper into the hole she asks herself,
“‘Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?’ Unfortunately, for bat-lovers and cat-lovers alike, they most certainly do.”
(BAT, Tessa Laird, Ch. 4)
(BAT, Tessa Laird, Ch. 4)
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