GPS Trackers Reveal Your Cat’s Adventures During The Night
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If you let your house cat outside and think it stays near your house, think again. Recent research used GPS trackers to show the daily movement of domestic cats, and its results surprised their owners.
“When you speak to a lot of cat owners, they say: “Oh my cat just sleeps on the end of my bed, it doesn’t go anywhere,” senior land service officer Peter Evans said. Because of the cat GPS, it turns out some of them have “gone three kilometers from home.”
“I thought Semi particularly would be a lazy cat — bottom of the garden or next door’s yard,” one of the pet owners said. He was shocked when he saw the GPS map and learned that Semi was going into bushland and “over the hill and far away.” The owner is guessing that the cat is “looking for food, which is probably the primary thing because he’s usually around eight and a half kilos which [the vet says] is far, far too heavy.”
The cat tracker survey was carried out by The Central Tablelands LLS at Lithgow, in central-west New South Wales.
More info: centraltablelands.lls.nsw.gov.au (h/t: designyoutrust)
A lot of cat owners say: “Oh my cat just sleeps on the end of my bed, it doesn’t go anywhere”
Turns out some of the cats have “gone three kilometres from home”
“I thought Semi particularly would be just local — bottom of the garden or next door’s yard,” one of the pet owners said
He was shocked when he learned that Semi was going into bushland and “over the hill and far away”
“Looking for food… is probably the primary thing because he’s usually around eight and a half kilos which [the vet says] is far, far too heavy”
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Wow. I can't even run 1 mile and look at this cat.
I want to reply to Vermilion some cats have many homes my cat belongs to the neighbor but I feed her and she sleeps with me and she is loved by the whole neighborhood. many people let "stray" cats into they're house to feed them or give them water they don't just go ghost like through walls unless of course they are ghosts!
Why are some of these very accurate and realistic, meandering paths around obstacles, and some are beelines for long distances that go directly through objects? Makes me think it could be GPS error that's sending them far away and back again.
Probably updates location every few minutes or so depending on how strong the signal is... or cats are just magic and can walk through walls while we sleep
Nayn Cats? 5655-57546...08aeee.jpg
Probably because those points are errors. There are all kinds of things that can mess up GPS feed and cause little blips that make no sense. Cliffs, tall buildings, cloud cover, military activity and low number of satellites can all cause weird points. In wildlife tracking we screen points for accuracy and ignore the impossible ones.
Teleportation
Yeah, that's just a loss of GPS signal between those two points. When the signal comes back online, a straight line is drawn from the last place a marker was placed. Just a small hindrance in a still very telling data story! :)
Or they climb on the roofs. I've seen my cats do that.
Agreed, the depicted GPS devices are clearly not updating at a reasonable interval. The perfectly long lines for over 100 meters are obviously not the real path the animal takes. This article is something of a joke because of this.
Wish I could see the adventures my cat takes...
You can! They sell small camera's that get strapped onto the cats collar. They were about 150.00 when they first came out a few years ago.
My cat would NEVER tolerate a camera. Yours?
http://pettracking.co.nz/pages/how-do-pet-trackers-work
Wow. I can't even run 1 mile and look at this cat.
I want to reply to Vermilion some cats have many homes my cat belongs to the neighbor but I feed her and she sleeps with me and she is loved by the whole neighborhood. many people let "stray" cats into they're house to feed them or give them water they don't just go ghost like through walls unless of course they are ghosts!
Why are some of these very accurate and realistic, meandering paths around obstacles, and some are beelines for long distances that go directly through objects? Makes me think it could be GPS error that's sending them far away and back again.
Probably updates location every few minutes or so depending on how strong the signal is... or cats are just magic and can walk through walls while we sleep
Nayn Cats? 5655-57546...08aeee.jpg
Probably because those points are errors. There are all kinds of things that can mess up GPS feed and cause little blips that make no sense. Cliffs, tall buildings, cloud cover, military activity and low number of satellites can all cause weird points. In wildlife tracking we screen points for accuracy and ignore the impossible ones.
Teleportation
Yeah, that's just a loss of GPS signal between those two points. When the signal comes back online, a straight line is drawn from the last place a marker was placed. Just a small hindrance in a still very telling data story! :)
Or they climb on the roofs. I've seen my cats do that.
Agreed, the depicted GPS devices are clearly not updating at a reasonable interval. The perfectly long lines for over 100 meters are obviously not the real path the animal takes. This article is something of a joke because of this.
Wish I could see the adventures my cat takes...
You can! They sell small camera's that get strapped onto the cats collar. They were about 150.00 when they first came out a few years ago.
My cat would NEVER tolerate a camera. Yours?
http://pettracking.co.nz/pages/how-do-pet-trackers-work