Comment by giraffe_lady
7 hours ago
That's about the effects of feral cat populations on large urban rats. Farm mousing cats take a little training but they do hunt differently because of it. Cats are also good pest control on small-medium boats.
A good mouser will spend hours, all day if it has to, haunting a specific spot where it knows there's an animal that doesn't have another path out. It's impressive to watch.
Anecdata but feral cats can help in the sense that the rats go elsewhere. I live in an area with a thriving rat population. There used to be a feral cat colony next door to us. In those days we almost never saw signs of rat activity, but our friends at the other end of the street were inundated with them. Construction happened, the cats were removed, and now both ends of the street have roughly the same level of activity.