The centre is the only organisation authorised to recover, rehabilitate and relocate injured wild vertebrates across the whole of Liguria, a region of nearly 5,400 square kilometres, together with parts of neighbouring southern Piedmont. Managed by the National Animal Protection Agency, it operates a veterinary clinic, housing facilities for animals of different sizes and a fenced rehabilitation area in isolated woodland about two kilometres from the main complex. Its staff of veterinarians and biology and natural history graduates follow international standards for wildlife rehabilitation, from the moment of admission to eventual release. Because the centre serves an entire region, its annual records offer a rare, systematic window into the pressures that domestic predators exert on local wildlife populations.

The breakdown of the 954 predation victims is striking. Birds accounted for 695 individuals, non-flying mammals for 192, bats for 57 and reptiles for 10. The most frequently affected species were the blackbird, with 196 individuals, the Eurasian collared dove, with 145, and the hedgehog, with 52. After a sharp increase in the second and third years of the study, the annual number of predation-related admissions stabilised at an average of roughly 137 individuals per year. The monthly pattern of admissions tracked the reproductive cycles of the victims: birds peaked between May and July, bats between June and August, and non-flying mammals showed two peaks, in May-June and August-September, when vulnerable juveniles are abroad.

Cats emerged as by far the more damaging predator. They were responsible for 810 of the recorded attacks, compared with 144 by dogs. Reptiles, birds, especially passerines, and bats were mainly prey for cats, while dogs preferentially attacked non-flying mammals, particularly medium-sized and medium-large species such as hedgehogs and the Eastern cottontail. In the case of dogs, juveniles were significantly more affected than adults, making up 59.7 percent of their victims, a pattern driven largely by hedgehogs and cottontails. The division of labour between the two predators mirrors what previous studies have found: cats specialise in small, agile prey, whereas dogs target larger animals that are less able to escape.

The severity of the injuries was sobering. After predation attempts by cats and dogs, 75.8 percent of the animals admitted to the centre died, a mortality rate significantly higher than the 38.9 percent recorded among wildlife admitted for all other causes. Cats killed a slightly larger share of their victims than dogs, 78.8 percent against 72.1 percent, although the difference between the two predators was not statistically significant. Only 21.6 percent of the predation victims were eventually released back into the wild, compared with 52 percent of animals admitted for other reasons. The authors note that this pattern is consistent with findings from North American rehabilitation centres, where animals injured by cats also showed very high mortality.

Among the victims were species of considerable conservation concern. The combined records show that five reptiles and 57 bats belong to species listed in Annex IV of the European Habitats Directive, and five birds belong to species listed in Annex I of the Birds Directive. According to the IUCN Italian Red List, two of the birds, the spotted crake and the garden warbler, are classified as critically endangered and endangered respectively, while 39 birds are listed as vulnerable and 18 birds and one bat as near threatened. Liguria is a biodiversity-rich region, with more than 29 percent of its surface area within Natura 2000 protected sites, and the presence of protected species among the victims suggests that free-roaming pets may undermine existing conservation measures.

The study’s authors stress that rescue-centre data capture only a fraction of the real toll. Many cases of predation are never found or reported, and the centre deliberately excluded ambiguous records labelled simply as predation from its analysis, as a precaution. Moreover, vertebrates are not the only prey of cats and dogs, so invertebrates, amphibians and other animals are absent from these figures altogether. Considering that Liguria and southern Piedmont together cover only about 2 percent of Italy’s national territory, the authors argue that the records understate the true extent of predation by cats and dogs across the country, where there are nearly 14 million microchipped dogs, around 1.2 million registered domestic cats and roughly one million stray cats in feline colonies.

The wider context is global. In Australia, feral cats have been implicated in the extinction of 34 mammal species, about 10 percent of the country’s endemic mammal fauna, and nine bird species since European colonisation in 1788. A global review has concluded that domestic dogs have contributed to the extinction of 11 vertebrate species and pose a threat to at least 188 threatened species worldwide. Beyond direct predation, cats and dogs destroy eggs and nests and can transmit pathogens to wildlife, and in suburban areas the risk to birds may be compounded when window-strike injuries leave them grounded and vulnerable to attack.

The researchers argue that the most immediate and effective response is education. Programmes that teach cat and dog owners how to manage their pets, and that raise awareness of the impact free-roaming animals can have on wildlife, have been recommended by numerous studies across different countries. The authors propose campaigns in schools that draw on the experience of rescue-centre operators, who act as frontline experts able to show the public which local species are most at risk. Social networks, they suggest, offer a channel through which the public can engage directly with the people who treat injured wildlife, fostering a more inclusive love of animals that extends beyond pets to the wild species sharing the same landscapes.

Emerging technologies may strengthen these efforts further. The authors point to artificial intelligence and machine learning as tools that could enhance the identification of wildlife species at risk, contributing to conservation strategies aimed at reducing the impact of introduced predators. Natural history museums, which preserve animals killed by domestic cats, can also serve as valuable complementary archives; the Natural History Museum of Genoa holds 29 such specimens collected over a 25-year period. Together, rescue centres and museums offer a permanent observatory for monitoring the predatory behaviour of domesticated and feral animals over time and space, a capability the authors say would greatly benefit wild vertebrate populations in Italy and beyond.

Subject of Research: Impact of domestic cat and dog predation on wild vertebrate populations recorded by an Italian wildlife rescue centre

Article Title: Vertebrates as victims of domestic cats and dogs: ten years of data from an Italian animal rescue centre (2015–2024)

Article References: Rufino, D., Dessalvi, G., Borgo, E., Molyneux, T., & Galli, L. (2025). Vertebrates as victims of domestic cats and dogs: ten years of data from an Italian animal rescue centre (2015–2024). Nature Conservation, 60, 99-113. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.60.158205

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/natureconservation.60.158205

Keywords: domestic cats, domestic dogs, wildlife predation, wildlife rescue centre, biodiversity conservation, Liguria, Italy, passerine birds, bats, hedgehogs, IUCN Red List, pet owners