Urban Wildlife. Cats 🐈 | Documentary | Science Channel

[Music] cats these graceful animals have lived side by side with humans for thousands of years they have been the cause of terrible epidemics numerous times they have also rescued people from destructive natural disasters many times always cautious and inconspicuous these natural-born hunters are able to survive even on a deserted island they are territorial they are aggressive they are distrustful they are able to attack a much larger creature and cause serious damage to it cats have to live by the rules people have set what tricks do they resort to in their daily struggle for existence do they need an owner and how has the relationship between cats and people changed over thousands of years [Music] [Music] there are about 400 million cats on earth half of them are house cats and the rest live on the streets according to statistics there are over 200 000 stray cats in moscow it is the most cautious and resourceful individuals who can survive in the big cities this is a distinctive cast of cats they are born in the street and trust only their self-preservation instinct it is these cats who consider themselves masters of the big city [Music] this is not the first generation of animals that live in the streets they have a fairly high degree of adaptation and perhaps you have seen how well cats find their way in a traffic flow so while the cars are moving they stand and wait patiently until the traffic lights become green and walk across the road along with people they live in their own world it's very easy to find food in the city and it's very easy to find shelter to hide from cold and rain [Music] we don't even guess it but city streets parks and courtyards have long belonged to stray cats the metropolis is divided by predators into hunting grounds each male controls a small area where he lives and hunts and the more aggressive the cat is the bigger the territory and the more subordinates he has [Music] cats are not like the animals that live in packs with a rigid hierarchy like wolves for example or any other animal nevertheless they can co-exist when following certain rules there are always some animals who play the role of chiefs if i may say so yes and there are subordinates and there's someone who's in between but in any case i'll go as far as to say that the strongest the healthiest and the most experienced cat is the one that will survive if you hear such a wailing cat howl you're most likely witnessing a territorial fight but why should cats expand the boundaries of their influence here weaker rivals try to move as far as possible from the fight field but be sure the female who these cats risk their lives for will stay close female cats are the main reason why alpha males have these night fights [Music] when the time comes for love many cats give in to nature and that's when we often hear these far from pleasant trails and at the same moment you can throw anything at the cat you can try to pour water onto it or somehow mute it the cat will be unaffected and will continue anyway if you can say so to give a concert because in its opinion the means justify the end zoo psychologists note that it is only for a female that cats fight so desperately with any other matter of dispute animals try to avoid using sharp claws and teeth they prefer to have a psychological struggle with their rival but why the fact is that the slightest scratch can lead to death if some infection gets through the wound cats may not realize this but their instinct tells them when it makes sense to have a real fight and when it is wiser to retreat usually these animals try to avoid any contact straight away because it knows perfectly well that there is no veterinarian under every bush and nobody will cure them in nature as a rule injuries are associated with losing life losing a possibility to hunt but for stray cats this is not the main rule of survival in a big city the main one is to avoid your neighbor a human after all for stray cats by birth we are strangers which means that we can be dangerous if the animal has been frightened if the animal doesn't have a positive experience of communicating with a human if for the animal the human is an unidentified object then it will not go into contact with him because in the life of such animals people are not part of their world view it's next to impossible to meet such cats in daylight in a crowded place you won't see them at garbage bins or cellars of apartment houses they won't eat the food left by a human living next to us these cats have reserved their independence in the city they behave as if they live in the steppe or in the forest where they need to hunt and at every step of the way the same hungry predators lie and wait for them but does this mean that stray cats are hostile to humans and can you teach semi-wild cats to trust people i wouldn't describe it using the word trust no i would say that as long as people don't interfere with them and if people offer them some interaction they may agree to give it a try or may do everything possible to avoid it that's why there are animals that come up to you at bus stops yes come up to people and rub against them and their animals that come up to you sit next to you and just watch and other animals that will never do so and will never appear in the field of human's vision british zoologists studying the behavior of wild and domestic cats found that distrust to people is characteristic of most members of the feline family over the years they haven't developed a sense of attachment to humans unlike dogs for example it's amazing that we were able to tame these animals at all this is what the ancient ancestor of all modern cats looks like the subspecies of the wild step cat feli silvestris libica is still living in north america according to american geneticists about ten thousand years ago at least five females of this subspecies were taken from the wild to houses and it was them who became the mother of all modern cats people tried to breed the most playful cats those that remained behaving like a kitten he tried not to breed of course those who showed any aggression to their owners for any reason what i mean is that we cannot say for sure that they did something bad to them most likely they were simply thrown out unfortunately back then it was not much of a city environment there were forests they were fields and it was much easier for a cat to survive the history of domestication of wild cats began in ancient egypt when a man began to grow and store grain he had to protect his supplies from mice and rats then people also paid attention to the wild hunters living near their settlements [Music] the cat is a hunter a hunter by birth it's hunting is very different it's not like dog hunting at all dogs need to run somewhere to seek to chase yes to follow the trail the cat hunts waiting in an ambush it waits just as long as necessary after which it makes an incredible effort if you watch a cat's jump in a slow motion how a cat hunts something a mouse doesn't matter what you can see that it puts in all its strength which is incredible for such a small creature sometimes in one single movement this kitten is not just playing now it's mastering hunting skills in the world of cats whether or not they catch prey depends on their speed of reaction [Music] people think that cats mostly hunt mice however this is not true they have three main types of prey small rodents birds and fish and for each case they have a specific hunting tactics and these are the movements the kitten is doing with a paw just like an adult cat will claw a mouse and here we see some hunting behavior that's it the mouse been caught the kitten's hiding with the mouse oh excellent the vision of cats is six times more acute than humans they are able to see in infrared and ultraviolet light moreover cats can distinguish up to 25 shades of grey [Music] this peculiar feature of vision can be explained by the coloration of their main prey mice whose fur color varies from light gray to dark gray and brownish gray it's very important for them to be able to see naturally in the dusk and in almost total darkness that is when only the stars and the moon shine it can see in that dimness which for the human seems to be complete darkness the main sensitive organ of cats is the whisker we're used to calling them whiskers however unlike a human mustache which is a masculine secondary sexual character and has a rather decorative role the animal's whiskers are important sensitive receptors with a multitude of anatomical and functional features [Music] [Applause] the vibrasa whiskers stem its outer part is longer and stiffer than other hair the root is implanted in a follicle sealed by blood the so-called sinus and is surrounded by tens of thousands of nerve endings that catch the slightest vibration movements and transmit information to the brain moreover the brain has a separate area for each whisker cats have a blind zone below their noses the snout is elongated and they don't see what is here their mouth at all therefore they cannot pick up anything from the ground with the help of the eyes they need to feel it with vibration the sensitivity of our palms it's not even close to the sensitivity of whiskers for example whiskers report a change in the surrounding environment sensing motions of airflow that's why it's impossible to come up to a cat unnoticed moreover thanks to the mechanoreceptors that is the ends of the sensitive nerves which are located at the base of whiskers cats are able to determine the distance to an object and to evade obstacles right in time even in total [Music] darkness squeeze through in order to get somewhere the cat must feel if there is a hole there big enough for it to go through by the way this is exactly how a cat determines whether the hole is big enough using the vibration which is why they almost never get stuck anywhere where the cat's head passes its whole body will pass it understands this with the help of whiskers which it in fact has on the whole face and on the front paws here along the side some scientists believe that ancestors of modern cats got whiskers as a kind of detectors even earlier than hair [Music] whiskers are thicker than normal hairs on the body of animals and there are individual muscles responsible for their movements in the mother's womb kittens first get whiskers formed and only after that hair and later on it is whiskers that allow cats to maintain the reputation of excellent hunters however the hunting instinct of cats has not always benefited humans every year 25 billion birds mice voles and other small rodents are killed with cat's paws this figure is cited by western biologists in their studies and it's not only stray cats who are responsible for this mass extermination domestic cats hold their paws to it as well they just frighten with their dreadful fury completely ruthless fury there are many recorded cases when cats drove away bears for example not being afraid of them at all and there are cases of cats attacking wolves and very big dogs in cases when cats really want in such let's say fights but it's not only the reputation of excellent hunters that has brought cats their all over the world fame this is what is left today from an ancient temple in the city of bubastis egyptians built a sanctuary to honor the cat which was worshiped there as the goddess of love and beauty [Music] the cat is mentioned in religious texts and by the end of the third millennium bc the cats have been documented as an object of worship as a deified being this was the era of the ancient kingdom the end of the ancient kingdom well known for its great pyramids gradually the record started to mention the goddess cat which was called bastet [Music] few people know but ancient egyptians valued cats so much that they were buried only in special cemeteries and given special honors moreover the mummies of these animals were found in many tombs of the pharaohs with the development of egyptian civilization the cat started playing more and more prominent role in the text of the so-called book of the dead [Music] now here in fact it's not a female cat as a creature associated with a feminine gender but a male cat a huge red cat that was considered the embodiment of the god ra and since the god ra the sun does as we know his journey not only during the day in the sky but also at night under the earth and there in the darkness it must defeat a large number of enemies then this enemy appears here in the image of a serpent the cat is one of the few animals that almost hasn't changed over thousands of years of evolution consider it yourself except for their size 5 000 years ago all representatives of the feline family look the same as today but what is most important is that while retaining their wild character and behavior cats are very different from all other animals that have been domesticated by humans take for example dogs because of the strict selection used to be wolves obeyed men becoming ideal watchdogs and shepherds not only did domesticated cats fail to drastically improve their owners lives but they also didn't allow people to change their predatory nature this according to zoologists indicates a high mental ability of cats the level of intellectual development of the cat hasn't been assessed yet what i mean is that if there is a certain scale experiments have been conducted on monkeys on dolphins on dogs on crows and rats to say how much the cat is capable precisely of rational activity is quite difficult nevertheless it is trainable it can solve problems the only point is whether it needs it the best way to assess cats intellectual capabilities is by training them in the arena as at the exam you can immediately see which animals are capable of solving tasks set by humans and which are not i think cats are smarter than us it is them who train us to make an animal do such tricks the trainer must first be a good psychologist [Music] after all if the artist is not in the mood it won't even go to the arena we had a kitty nikita yes we were learning a new trick and she didn't want to straighten her paws and jacob just raised his voice a little bit so to speak raised his voice she drooped itself straightened the pause and refused to take meat did so then did this and in the evening she didn't want to go and work remember that in the morning you'd raise your voice at me but then of course she went back to work [Music] the training begins as soon as a kitten is three to four months old at first they're simply taken to the arena to get used to the territory then comes the time of training [Music] every day new ones come here like school watch and remember how adults cat how adult cats work while the kitten is growing up we look at its abilities someone is jumpy someone loves climbing someone is afraid of heights someone on the contrary isn't afraid of heights for example this one is afraid of heights while his brother is not that's it we aren't going to of course aren't going to prepare for any stunts at height [Music] another clear indication of cats intellectual abilities is the fact that they've found their own special language to communicate with humans meowing cats really have a huge range of these sounds they have a huge number of them moreover we can assume that this is actually well literally a language a cat can communicate this way with another cat it can talk to itself like a person for example because it is nervous or excited and this is absolutely normal [Music] animal language has always interested humans therefore researchers around the world thoroughly compose and analyze the sounds that animals produce in different situations to compose a special dictionary and finally learn to understand their neighbors on the planet the first attempts to approach the understanding of the cat language were undertaken by japanese zoologists they developed a prototype of a special electronic translator that recognizes the animal's language a microphone and radio transmitter are attached to the collar the electronic device translates the meaning of the cat's meowing into human language and a phrase appears on a special screen to create this translator scientists analyzed the sounds of 4 000 cats of different breeds the compilation of the cat's dictionary took almost five years to understand animals one shouldn't try to teach them your own language or imagine how a human would behave in their place what you should do is try to observe them and pay attention to those features that they themselves offer us for communication what i mean is the language which is typical for them if you take and compare it with a human it's not even a foreigner who doesn't know our language infected well you can compare it with an alien [Applause] in the communication between animals and others everything is much simpler a single glance or a turn of the head is enough for them to understand who is in charge here [Music] at first glance this is an ordinary site for training dogs but it's not that simple [Music] [Applause] dogs here are trained by a cat named borzoi which means cocky now we'll take the cat up to the dogs to check their reaction to the cat in this case for such work the cat should be very calm very adequate not afraid of anything especially not of dogs and not showing them harsh aggression is ideal for this job the result of his past in the streets julia took him from the street when he was a four-month-old kitten she saved him from a dash and chasing him around the yard and now it is borzel who trains dogs [Music] our task is basically to see how this dog the one closest to us will react first of all i always show my cat's bottom to the dog because if you bring them face to face it can cause a completely inadequate reaction from the dog even perhaps an attempt to snap the cat or for example to greet the cat very actively so to speak which the cat naturally won't like either this is the most difficult stage of training borzoi has to go along the backs of dogs look the dogs are nervous because now they are in a position of victims and the cat is in the position of the attacker but since the cat is perfectly calm does not hiss doesn't growl even if the dog starts to mess around actively the dog begins to perceive the cat as something that is not that dangerous but someone that's worth respecting and this reduces the desire to chase an unfamiliar cat in the city and in this case we also protect stray cats that are necessary in the city as rat eliminators [Music] according to statistics more than 30 cats find themselves in the streets of moscow every day some get lost some are thrown out by owners these stray cats bellis and oliver's have one thing in common once they lived a full life at a home however now they'll have to adjust to survive in the concrete jungle zoo psychologists note the behavior of lost animals is very different from the habits of their congeners born in the streets they aren't so cunning fast and in a big city they don't feel like masters more like victims if the cat was brought up in the house then after hitting the street it i'm not going to say the word is lost no because it's not always possible to lose it but it often doesn't know how to abuse she doesn't always understand some of the gestures and actions that others offer it well other fellows in misfortune yes if you can say so [Music] to survive these cats try to stay together closer to food and shelter living in different yards animals consider each other members of one colony usually the number of animals ranges from three or four to twenty cats domestic cats are unlikely to survive hunting so they've found their way to adapt to life in the streets they've settled next to the ones who they've lived with most of their lives humans in the hope that they will feed them and they are absolutely right at the basement of multi-storied houses in the markets and at construction sites where these cats live there are always those who will feel sorry for them and feed stray animals in the city they live in the number and in the places where they can be fed by people accordingly if the conditions are favorable for example if someone feeds them or there is a source of food and of course there will be a livestock of animals much bigger than in conditions where the entrances are blocked for example or they have nowhere to hide the most difficult thing for lost cats is to survive in the streets for the first two weeks during this period animals try to hide from people and their conscientious but they leave their shelters very rarely only to find some food but as soon as the cat has got used to the new environmental conditions it will start looking for an opportunity to return to its owner the question is whether they will survive these 14 days in the streets you know because many of our animals that have lived in an apartment they have their claws removed they have caps on their claws and they have collars with bells they become very easy prey and target a lot of cats who for example live in families with dogs they therefore are not afraid of dogs because they haven't had such an experience so the dogs offended them they can go out and face a pack of dogs just get run over by a car because for them well this is an incomprehensible story most vets left without an owner are unable to survive in an aggressive urban environment however some cats amaze us with their wit and ability to adapt they seem to store in the depths of their consciousness the whole experience of their ancestors quickly turning from sweet kitties into wild predators there are many stories when domestic cats left in summer houses or forgotten in other cities return to their owners how when they are hundreds or sometimes thousands of kilometers away do the animals find their way home to answer this question zoo psychologists have an unusual experiment the animals were closed in boxes deprived of the opportunity to navigate and were driven around the city for several hours after that they were released in a completely unfamiliar place surprisingly 99 of the cats had no problem to find the right direction scientists explain this by the fact that cats like birds navigate by the geomagnetic field of the earth literally feeling in which direction to move [Music] if now it was a dog in place of the cat named borzoi it would have injuries for sure however the cat lands on four paws with ease these animals can remain unharmed even when falling from the height of a nine-story building let's look at what happens to the cat's body during the fall in slow motion it is seen how the cat manages to flip in the air and align the body in relation to the ground within fractions of a second first it turns its head to assess where he will have to land then the cat turns and aligns its body in one line with the head four legs are taken closer to the head and the back ones as far as possible from the body it does all these instantly and accurately [Music] just before landing the soft pads and well-developed limb muscles perform the function of a kind of shock absorber that is at the moment of landing the force of impact is softened in addition to that they have an insanely flexible spine and the body's abilities virtually every part of the body can move irrelatively to the other however it wants they don't have clavicles it is very important clavicles are the bones which actually attach the shoulders and naturally when falling from a height the first thing that suffers is this thin clavicle cats have only rudimentary clavicles in fact their front legs are not connected here except with the muscles the cat can reduce its speed with its paws jumping from a huge height for special qualities cats have been attributed unusual abilities for many centuries [Music] cats apprehend natural disasters earthquakes volcanic eruptions and floods in ancient times dwellers of cities located near active volcanoes watched the behavior of cats and if the animals left the house it meant that people were not safe to stay [Music] still today people living in seismic regions closely monitor the behavior of their pets who have repeatedly saved their lives there are many recorded cases when cats apprehending an earthquake woke their owners with loud meowing and they managed to run out into the street just minutes before the disaster [Music] cats have a very well developed vestibular apparatus which means that they are very sensitive to pressure changes and for example they can hear sounds at a very very long distance during world war one cats were kept in trenches so that they could warn of a gas attack in advance and during world war ii they were taken aboard submarines as live detectors of air composition there are many well-known cases when cats for example saved whole families in the war signaling people to go out of houses and buildings before bombing and this is known because animals easily connect the presence of some distant sound and the consequences imagine it can hear and we cannot the sound that the airplanes make at a great distance because this is a certain fluctuation of air and these are certain sounds that may not be available to our ears however today not all cats have qualities that until recently have allowed them to survive in the most difficult conditions and this is all because humans decided to interfere with the nature of these animals depriving them of their main advantage independence scientists have studied the genome of cats and found out specially bred domestic animals are at a genetic level different from congeners living in the wild domestic cats were found to have an increased number of so-called genes about domestication responsible for gentleness and obedience here you can find the best representatives of pedigree cats la beard bald and even multi-fingered [Music] as a result of breeding by humans every year there are several new breeds in the world [Music] millions of years of evolution haven't changed the cat so much as we have in just a few decades this could affect the temperaments and the degree the level of sociability there are cats that are actually chatterboxes they walk and they meow meow meow after a man they demand they impose themselves the man would be glad to communicate with him but he's talking the phone for example or cooking and it will rub purr in my ear all the time murmur well they're cats they're are phlegmatic they sleep they're cats that there are soft and bend everywhere well it's all made yes with the help of a human most of these cats have never hunted and they observe the street life only through the grid of their pet carrier these animals are 100 bred for living with man and alone they would die the problem is that people don't understand cats anymore we've locked them in apartments for them it's absolutely not a normal state to live in such a closed space in an apartment where people constantly move where there are household items in a very small space the cat most often doesn't feel safe for one simple reason people have forgotten that cats live in a three-dimensional world not in a two-dimensional world they need to have heights if a cat does not have a place where it can sit somewhere high safely if from there it cannot watch what's happening if it doesn't have quiet secluded corners dark where the hand will not go for example there yes in a wardrobe somewhere in the clothes where the cat can hide a cat doesn't feel very comfortable it turns out that having domesticated cats have humans eventually made them vulnerable perhaps that's why wild animals value their freedom and independence in the winter of 2014 the stray cat matchka who lives in one of the entrance halls and openings became a star of all russian television channels it saved a two-month-year-old baby for several hours the cat kept the child warm with her body while she was lying on her in the box then she began to meow loudly the neighbors who came to the hall found the baby and called the doctors the child was rescued and the katmoshka became a local star it looks like everybody dreams of becoming its owner however the stray cat matchka keeps living in the interest hall preferring to be free it turns out that not every cat needs an owner if the animal comes to the house from the street as a small kitten or a youngster kitten the chances for its adaptation are much higher than for an adult animal that have their own characters their habits which may well be due to the state of health yes or just found themselves in an apartment for most stray animals the city is their home therefore taking up a cat for re-education it is necessary to remember that it was born in the streets and at any time it may want to return it's very often that the animal is taken vaccinated castrated it's staying at home and then people leave for the country house in the summer and even not being released the animal still goes to freedom zoo psychologists argue the owner is not able to influence the decision of the cat to go and live in the streets even if a human takes the animal back it will find a way to escape again the cat if you remember how it should live has a huge territory there it knows everything it constantly explores this territory constantly moves it has secluded places where it can sleep where no one will touch it and there are places where it will definitely catch prey yes there it will snap it there are places where it simply for example rests washes there drinks water and all these places should be safe for the cat and only in a situation when a stray cat is on the verge between life and death is it ready to give up its independence this is anfisa she was born and grew up in the streets there she probably would have died if it were not for an accidental encounter with a human whose feet the cat literally threw herself under we got it somewhere about six years ago our general producer brought it found it on a cold november evening he brought it in the office in his coat natalia is an employee in an office and part-time nurse of cats she shares responsibilities of caring for office cats with her colleagues and is very happy with this neighborhood i was delighted when i sort of realized that they have cats living in the office that they're among us and they're coming so you can take it up stroke it something like some sort of a cat therapy you know pet therapy or zoo therapy this concept entered our life after scientists found out animals are able to affect the human body improving not only the psychological but the physical state as well modern computer equipment a plastic box a cat with super sensitive sensors and a person stroking it that's how scientists around the world are studying the purring of cats there is a theory that purring is soothing for the human nervous system especially children for many children who have problems with a motor system or some problems with mental development or some problems with communication with communication skills for example some degree of autism then the communication with animals often relaxes them relaxes makes it possible to feel more at ease and often by the way can even restore some movements because it is very soft and warm mobile it pushes it allows you to touch it communication with cats is the main item on the menu here while a couple of the most curious cats sniff visitors at the entrance the others look down at everything that is happening [Music] when the waitresses offer coffee with cookies the inhabitants of the cafe will certainly help you [Music] unlike us cats give a much larger role in the communication to gestures in fact they have developed not the language of words if one can say so but the body language if the cat is relaxed its eyes are open its ears stand upright the tail is calm no matter if it has lowered or raised but the main thing is that it is calm the animal can stretch can move relaxed and this means that it is in a good mood that it can communicate that it is interesting to her and the main thing is that it's not afraid of anything here there are cats of different breeds and colors each with its own character tastes habits and lifestyle some of them will play with you some of them will let you stroke them and some will look down at it the day starts at 9am for them the working day that is our girls come and open their cages where they spend the night and this is also a prerequisite for them to rest in these separate kennels [Music] from each other from guests from communication and at nine o'clock they go out help get the girls clean and then meet the if guests get tired they can go to the cat cafe and relax there climb into our numerous shelves [Music] from the cat's point of view everything is thought through here to the last detail scratching post high shelves where it is convenient to hide and the number of multi-colored mice gives dance to the eyes everything for cats is the policy of the founders of the cafe if a cat is satisfied then more visitors will have cat therapy [Music] these are their cages where they spend the night it's somewhere from 11 p.m to 9 00 a.m in the morning to have the opportunity to rest from each other from the guests to sleep normally everyone has its own cage some have a smaller one and in each cage there's a hammock they like them very much the trays the water and the food is necessary for the cat at night [Music] even in a metropolis living among people cats have managed to maintain their independence like thousands of years ago they divide the territory hunt grow up raise offspring and still do not particularly need a human people will have to accept it we will never turn cats into loyal servants as we did with dogs but perhaps that is why they are so interesting to us and precious [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Science

Views: 27,637

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Keywords: science, Urban Wildlife, cats, Interesting facts about cats, facts about cats, wildlife in cities, cats in circus, cats in city, graceful animals, cause of terrible epidemics, cats rescuing humans, inconspicuous, innate hunters, survive even on a deserted island, have to live by the rules, daily struggle for existence, does cat need an owner, relationship between cats and people, human and cat, cat, funny cats, cute cats, cats meowing, cat hunter, cat hunting, domestic cats

Id: BlSPgocyE7Q

Length: 43min 52sec (2632 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 12 2020