Sure, he might look cute...I've been calling for years for these predators to be taken off the streets, but no, these mamby-pamby Brits only want to "study" them, never mind the mass carnage they're inflicting on innocents.
It may be a pussycat at home, but behind your back your pet moggy is a ruthless assassin.In these tough economic times, perhaps these fearsome tabbies ought to start selling their prey to make a few extra bucks.
Millions of other small animals fall victim to our feline friends, with researchers claiming that each cat takes about five lives every year.
Now some of these soft-pawed mass murderers are to be electronically tagged to discover exactly how many wildlife deaths they are responsible for.
Some experts believe Britain's nine million cats could be killing nearly 150 million birds, mice, rabbits and other creatures every year.
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A total of 241 cats from nine different urban areas around Reading are part of the project.
And for some small creatures such as the house sparrow - whose numbers are already in decline - cat predation could be a serious threat.
So now scientists are looking at 241 cats to investigate what they get up to when they are not at home.
The research is being led by PhD student Rebecca Dulieu, a biologist at the Centre for Wildlife Assessment and Conservation at Reading University.
The project will attempt to calculate the number of prey for each cat, along with their hunting movements and home ranges.
The total number of prey for cats from nine urban areas around Reading will be recorded.
Miss Dulieu said: 'We have found that our cats are bringing back, on average, 4.8 dead animals a year, mostly mice, but some rats, shrews and bank voles, and we've even had a weasel and a mole.'
Previous research has shown cats bring only about 30 per cent of their prey home, with large kills such as rabbits too heavy to carry and some creatures eaten on the spot.
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