Transporting and Storing Kills

The domestic cat's hunting instinct is similar to that of most other members of the cat family. In the wild, cats use similar strategies to stalk, capture, and kill, according to their abilities.

Just as the domestic cat often returns to its home territory to eat its kill, many wild cats drag their prey back home, and even up a tree, where it can be consumed in safety.

Wild cats consume only what they need to satisfy their hunger, saving excess food to consume later.

Like the larders of corpses often built up in yards by domestic cats, wild cats that prey on large herbivores will keep a larder of meat until it is finished, as a guaranteed food source.

But while house-fed domestic cats accumulate an overflowing larder of excess meat, wild cats always consume what they kill unless there is a sudden and overwhelming supply of game.