Feral Cat

A feral cat is an unowned domestic cat that lives outdoors, avoids human contact and typically remains hidden, though some become comfortable around people who feed them regularly without ever becoming fully tame. Breeding across many generations, feral cats can become a dominant predator in urban, savanna and bushland environments, especially on islands whose native animals never evolved alongside such predators, and conservation biologists count them among the world's worst invasive species, with a listing on the IUCN's hundred worst invasive alien species and an estimated 480 million feral individuals among the world's 700 million cats. Trap-neuter-return programs are widely promoted to curb feral cat numbers, though evidence for their effectiveness at actually controlling populations is weak.