A new study published in Nature Communications has revealed that outdoor cats in America struggle to catch even one meal per day.
Farm, feral, stray and garden cats in the US caught and killed around 20 billion birds and mammals in 2012 according to disappointing figures released last month. With a feral population of over 60 million, that equates to less than one meal per cat per day.
Stray cats will be particularly hard hit by the food shortage, as they often lack the proper education and hunting skills that are necessary for increasingly competitive modern urban living.
A cat familiar with the subject, who did not wish to be named, said that the biggest problem is humans not pulling their weight. "The whole point of domesticating humans was to solve these food shortages. Cats are not naturally good at fishing. The theory was that if you give a cat a fish then he eats for a day, but if you train a human to catch fish then cats can eat for generations. Humans now catch tens of millions of tonnes of fish per year, yet cats are still going hungry"
"One fish per cat per day is all we ask for" he added, "...and string. We like string too."
