11
like Dr Johnson could keep a cat, the
animals were generally regarded with
suspicion. Consequently although as man's
population grew and scavengable street
wastes became more abundant and the cat
population steadily grew with it, a large
proportion of the cat population lived feral
lives.
Langley and Yalden suggest that the true
wild cat had died out in southern England
by or during the 16th century. The numbers
for Essex would have become slight, probably
earlier, not just from hunting but drastic
habitat change. Loss of woodland turning to
farmland, and human habitations with
scavengable waste food, would have favoured
the emerging feral cat. From my survey of
North Romford cats it is clear that even today
a large state of flux exists between the
feral and house cats (if largely via
'strays'), where 22% of house cats had been
taken in as strays or feral.
Today it seems Britain's feral population
may be as high as between 1-11/2 million
cats, and the house cat population is some-
where between 31/2 and 5 million. Until near
the end of the last century the proportion
living feral may have been greater due to
circumstance and man's attitude.
What impact are todays housecats making on
the wildlife of our Essex garden? Provisional
interpretation of a sample of 788 households
of which 224 had cats, from a survey carried
out of the Chelmsford and neighbouring areas
(with the help of the staff and students of
the Chelmsford Adult Education Centres)
shows that about half of the cats occasionally