Understanding Human Factors Involved in the Unwanted Cat Problem
UNDERSTANDING HUMAN FACTORS INVOLVED IN THE UNWANTED CAT PROBLEM Sarah Jane Maria Zito BVetMed MANZCVS (feline medicine) A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Queensland in 2015 School of Veterinary Science I Abstract The large number of unwanted cats in many modern communities results in a complex, worldwide problem causing many societal issues. These include ethical concerns about the euthanasia of many healthy animals, moral stress for the people involved, financial costs to organisations that manage unwanted cats, environmental costs, wildlife predation, potential for disease spread, community nuisance, and welfare concerns for cats. Humans contribute to the creation and maintenance of unwanted cat populations and also to solutions to alleviate the problem. The work in this thesis explored human factors contributing to the unwanted cat problem—including cat ownership perception, cat caretaking, cat semi-ownership and cat surrender—and human factors associated with cat adoption choices and outcomes. To investigate human factors contributing to the unwanted cat problem, data were collected from 141 people surrendering cats to four animal shelters. The aim was to better understand the people and human-cat relationships involved, and ultimately to inform strategies to reduce shelter intake. Participants were recruited for this study when they surrendered a cat to a shelter and information was obtained on their demographics, cat interaction history, cat caretaking, and surrender reasons. This information was used to describe and compare the people, cats, and human-cat relationships contributing to shelter intake, using logistic regression models and biplot visualisation techniques. A model of cat ownership perception in people that surrender cats to shelters was proposed.
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