DOI: 10.5061/dryad.31zcrjdv9
title: Quantifying prey return rates of domestic cats in the UK

description: Non‐native predators can cause great harm to natural ecosystems through
 competition for resources and by directly predating on native species.
 Domestic cats (Felis catus) predate on wild prey throughout the world and
 have been implicated in a number of species declines. However, in the UK,
 long‐term, widespread research is lacking. The data provided here relate
 to prey returned home by pet cats in the UK over a total period of 3.5
 years (ranging from one month to 3.5 years per cat). These data were
 collected by cat owners across the UK, noting details of the prey returned
 home by their cats monthly. Data were gathered upon registration regarding
 the age, sex, and body condition of participating cats, allowing for the
 analysis of the potential influence of such factors.  While most
 cats returned 0–1 prey per month, a small minority (n = 3 cats) returned
 over 15 individuals monthly. It is important that true predation rates (in
 addition to the return rates found here) are further explored and
 quantified, along with the actual impact that this has or does not have on
 prey populations. 
description: # Title of Dataset: Quantifying prey return rates of domestic cats in the
 UK \[Access this dataset on Dryad](DOI: 10.5061/dryad.31zcrjdv9) ##
 Description of the data and file structure Data are presented in two
 files: 'Data1_prey' and 'Data2_cats'. Data1_prey. This
 file contains details of all prey returned home by the cats monitored
 (n=553) over a total period of 3.5 years. Cat_ID is a unique identifier
 for each cat and Prey_ID is as given by owners or as verified by
 researchers thanks to photographs provided. Taxonomic group is then given,
 along with whether prey were dead or alive (or not recorded), what
 happened to the prey which were returned alive (for example, released),
 and whether returned whole, part-eaten, or witnessed by owners to be
 eaten. Age and sex were not required, but some participants gave this
 information in the related 'notes' section of the data return
 form. As such, there are many 'NA' datapoints for age and sex
 fields. Data2_cats. This file contains data relating to the participating
 cats and how many mammals and birds were returned per month of study.
 Cat_ID is the same unique identifier used in the 'Data1_prey'
 sheet and relates to an individual cat. For each cat, the month and year
 of study is given (one row per study month, per cat), along with the
 number of mammals and number of birds returned that month, regardless of
 species. Age categories are as follows: kitten (&lt;1year), y_adult (1-6
 years), o_adult (7-12 years), old (13 years+). Cat sex and whether
 neutered were also given. Body_cond relates to the body condition score
 (BCS) of each cat, as described by the owners, and categories are as
 follows: A (BCS of 1-3), B (BCS of 4-5), C (BCS of 6-7), D (BCS of 8-9).
 Also given is whether or not the cat had access to the outdoors via a cat
 flap, whether a belled collar was worn, and whether owners provided food
 for birds in their garden. there are no unknowns or NA values in this
 dataset. ### Code/software All GLMM analyses were conducted in a Bayesian
 framework, as the R packages available for zero-inflated mixed models in a
 frequentist context are very limited. Analyses were completed using R
 version 4.0.2 and R Studio version 1.0.153 (R Core Team 2016; R Studio
 Team 2020), utilising the package ‘R2jags’ (Su & Yajima 2020) and BUGS
 code from Zuur and Ieno (2016).