Lions ___1___ the savannah are a staple of nature documentaries. But the millions of little lions that live in our homes and neighborhoods also lead fascinating lives. We know more about those lives now, because a two-year-long study used radio-transmitters to track cats at the southern edge of the cities of Champaign and Urbana in Illinois. ___2___. The study is in the Journal of Wildlife Management. [Jeff Horn et al., "Home Range, Habitat Use, and Activity Patterns of Free-Roaming Domestic Cats"]

The entire kittie cohort included both housecats and feral cats, and ranged over almost 6,300 acres. One feral cat’s range ___3___ 1,351 acres. New York’s Central Park covers 843 acres.

Owned cats with homes roamed way less than their feral counterparts. But they still ___4___ just under five acres. The pets were highly active just 3 percent of the time, compared with 14 percent for the cats that need to find their own food. The work should ___5___ protecting species that the cats hunt, and inform the efforts to stop the spread of feline contagious diseases.
【視聽版科學小組榮譽出品】
roaming It would have taken a dozen field researchers to collect the same data. topped out at averaged a range of shed light on
熱帶叢林里的獅子無疑是自然紀實的主要觀察對象，但左鄰右舍成千上萬的小貓咪也有豐富多彩的生活。研究人員耗時兩年，利用無線電發(fā)射機追蹤伊利諾伊州的尚佩恩和厄本那南端的貓科動物。如果不是無線電發(fā)射機，要獲取同樣的數(shù)據(jù)大概得耗費眾多研究人員的時間和精力了。這項研究成果刊登在《野生動物管理》雜志上。 整個研究對象包括家貓和野外生存的貓科動物，范圍覆蓋約6300英畝。一只野生貓科動物的活動范圍最大可達1351英畝，而紐約中央公園也只占地843英畝…（果然很野。。。） 家貓的活動范圍就小的多了，不過平均下來也有5英畝。家貓高度活躍的時間只有3％，而需要自行覓食的野生貓科動物則有14％的時間是保持高度興奮狀態(tài)的。因此，人們也該意識到保護貓科動物的獵食對象的重要性并采取行動防止貓科動物接觸性傳染病的傳播。