Much of the research on feral cats in Australia has occurred in the continent’s arid and semi-arid regions. Consequently, little is known about the ecology of feral cats in tall forests. Using a combination of both VHF and ‘store on board’ GPS collars, feral cats were tracked in the forests of Far East Gippsland, Victoria, to investigate both home range size and movement patterns. The use of GPS collars to obtain accurate and high volumes of location data allowed the intra-home range movements of feral cats to be examined in ways not previously possible using conventional VHF radio telemetry. Male cats had significantly larger home ranges (MCP 100, mean ± se: 455 ± 126 ha) than females (105 ± 28 ha). Male home ranges overlapped those of females and female ranges overlapped with neighbouring females. Overlaps in female home ranges, in particular of the core areas, indicate that female cats in Far East Gippsland are tolerant of other females and do not actively exclude them. Feral cats in these productive tall forests have smaller home ranges than those in arid and semi-arid regions where food resources are sparse or limited, but larger ranges than those inhabiting farmland and grassland habitats where food resources are generally more abundant. Location data gathered at three different temporal intervals – 6 hourly, hourly, and every 15 minutes, showed that feral cats utilise a Lévy walk-style searching pattern as they move through their home range. Employing a Lévy walk increases the likelihood of encountering prey items that are distributed sparsely in the environment, in turn maximising the potential hunting return for effort expended. These findings will allow managers to adopt a more targeted approach when undertaking feral cat management programs in these habitats by providing information on where to deploy traps, baits or other control measures.

Carnivore predation on livestock often leads people to retaliate. Persecution by humans has contributed strongly to global endangerment of carnivores. Preventing livestock losses would help to achieve three goals common to many human societies: preserve nature, protect animal welfare, and safeguard human livelihoods. Between 2016 and 2018, four independent reviews evaluated >40 years of research on lethal and nonlethal interventions for reducing predation on livestock. From 114 studies, we find a striking conclusion: scarce quantitative comparisons of interventions and scarce comparisons against experimental controls preclude strong inference about the effectiveness of methods. For wise investment of public resources in protecting livestock and carnivores, evidence of effectiveness should be a prerequisite to policy making or large-scale funding of any method or, at a minimum, should be measured during implementation. An appropriate evidence base is needed, and we recommend a coalition of scientists and managers be formed to establish and encourage use of consistent standards in future experimental evaluations.