Scientist Explains Why Some Cats Eat Human Corpses

Scared of dying alone with your cat?

Well, here's something to add to that fear.

They might eat you after you die.

This surprisingly common concern is getting attention

thanks to a recent paper out of

the Forensic Investigation Research Station

at Colorado Mesa University.

Researchers there were studying body decomposition

when they unintentionally captured

footage of cats feasting on human corpses.

[cats meowing]

Now, we would show you the images,

but they're incredibly gruesome.

Bite marks, no, nobody has to,

nobody should see these.

Now, those were feral cats that wandered in from the desert,

but there are also documented cases of house cats

consuming their dead owners.

To find out what to make of all this,

we spoke with Dr. Mikel Delgado,

a cat behavior specialist at UC Davis.

So, let's get this question out of the way.

If I was a cat owner, and I died suddenly,

will my cat eat me?

There's a very good chance

that your cat would eat you, assuming that your body

laid around for an extended period of time.

How in the world did scientists

mange to study cats eating corpses?

So, it's important to understand

that the researchers who published this finding

were not specifically looking

to test if cats would eat corpses.

The study was really an observation that was made

during a separate research project

looking into the decomposition of human bodies,

and, so they had corpses outside

that were exposed to the elements,

and it just so happened

that because they had cameras on these bodies,

they were able to capture footage

of feral cats sneaking into the facility

and snacking on some of the bodies.

They have fences around so that large animals don't come in,

but, apparently, the fences

were not secure enough to keep cats out.

It's interesting.

These are things that kinda rub us the wrong way.

They maybe don't fit into our schema

of our pets being loving and loving us.

It really violates that idea of, We do so much

for our pets, and then they turn around and eat us.

So, I understand that there were dozens of bodies

in this research facility, but the cats

tended to have a preference.

Can you tell me about that?

Yeah, in this case, there were two cats

that had been observed

consuming flesh of some of the corpses,

and, in both cases, they picked an individual body

that they seemed to go back to over, and over again,

and it was a different body for each cat.

So, we don't really know

why the cats would have that strong of a preference.

Maybe some of the flesh had decomposed

to the extent that it was easier

to actually break into the flesh and eat,

and, then, once that process has been started,

it might just be safer to go back to what you know.

I know that I liked the taste, or I didn't get sick

after I ate that particular bit of meat,

which is really how we should be thinking about this,

and, so I decided to review the other literature

about scavenging by cats,

and it turned out that there were

quite a few other reports of mostly pet owners

who were consumed, not fully,

but, flesh eaten by their pets.

There were dozens,

and they were mostly case reports

from police reports and other incidents

where people, basically, observed this behavior happening.

Is there any idea of a number?

How many times has this happened?

[Dr. Delgado] I have no idea.

First of all, we have low opportunity

for the behavior to happen.

How many people die suddenly in their home,

nobody checks on them, and they live with a cat?

So, it's not a frequently occurring behavior,

and it's also possible that it happens,

but it's not noticed.

I was also a little worried

because I didn't want to highlight something

that might promote negative ideas about cats.

People already think cats are evil,

or plotting to kill us, or constantly scheming

to get back at us,

and, so I wanted to be really careful

about how this was presented to the public,

because it is the kind of topic

that could really turn people against cats.

Like, Oh, they just wanna kill people and eat them.

[Wendi] I'm feeling really good right now

that I have a dog.

So, scientists didn't intend to study cats eating corpses.

Why do you think they continued to look into it?

What kind of value are we gonna get out

of that kind of research?

[Dr. Delgado] We primarily think of cats as predators,

as animals who hunt kill, and then eat what they've killed,

and in this case, it really highlights

the fact that they are also scavengers.

Why would that be?

I think one important thing to consider

is that if an animal who can hunt and scavenge

is actually increasing their dietary repertoires.

Now, if there's no available animals to hunt,

it's possible that you could

increase your reproductive fitness.

In other words, your ability to pass on your genes,

by being adaptive, by being

able to eat animals that have been killed by someone else

that you can now take advantage of,

and this is something that, again,

we don't really think of it as being common among cats,

although, it's definitely documented

in some of the scientific literature

that cats will scavenge,

but it's definitely much less

than other animals like ferrets, and dogs,

who are big time scavengers.

[Wendi] Wait, did she say dogs?

No, no, no, there's no way my sweet girl

would ever consider eating me.

There's actually been more documentation

of dogs eating their owners than cats.

No.

Don't blame it all on the cats.

[laughing]

I think it's difficult for humans

to set aside our morals and our feelings

about people or animals that are important to us.

Most of us would never think about eating our pet,

even if they died,

and I think we tend to hold our companion animals

maybe to a high moral standard

that's really based in human beliefs and ethics,

and doesn't really have much to do with their reality.

At the end of the day, if they're hungry

and there's flesh around, they're going to be opportunistic

and take advantage of what's available.

So, it's really important not to think of this

as, Oh, your cats plotting to kill you,

or, Cats are evil.

The instinct to do what is necessary to survive

is very strong,

and that includes eating whatever is available.

So, the cats in the study were feral cats.

What does that tell us about the difference

between feral cats and domesticated cats?

So, domesticated cats and feral cats are both cats.

There's no clear genetic difference between the two.

In the case of the current study,

it's possible that these cats did

not have any other food source

aside from what they were able to hunt.

In that case, they might have been a little more motivated

to scavenge because they were hungry.

So, is it safe to say that we would see

a little bit less of this behavior

out of domesticated cats in a home that provides food?

[Dr. Delgado] You would anticipate

that fewer of those cats would eat their dead owner.

However, some of the case reports that I reviewed,

suggested that,

there was one dog who had freely available food,

he actually had food in his stomach,

and he still did consume part of his owner.

So, there may be other motivating factors.

What was actually theorized in one paper

was that what might happen is not that the animal

just starts eating the person,

but that they don't recognize

that the person's dead at first,

and, so they might start pawing

or, even, nipping at the owner's body

because they think that the owner should respond to them.

So, they're trying to get some reaction from the owner,

and, then, from that, they might tear into the flesh,

and that might start a little cascade to snacking.

While I would think that that would reduce

the likelihood of scavenging, we don't know.

We don't have enough evidence

to say it would stop it all together.

So, because of ethical issues,

there hasn't been a specific study on it,

but we do have mounting evidence

that animals can or will eat their dead owner.

[Dr. Delgado] It's not like cats

are eating people left and right.

It really has to be a perfect storm of circumstances,

which is typically that you have

someone who lives alone in an isolated situation.

They have an illness that might lead

them to die suddenly, and they live

with a pet who is freely moving around in their home.

So, that's the conditions that

tend to lead to a pet indulging, I guess,

or eating parts of their owners' bodies,

and the other thing that's important to recognize

is that just because animals will eat

part of a corpse, does not mean that they will eat you

when you're alive.

There's little risk to a living person

if your animal does not have aggression issues,

to think that they're gonna try to eat you

or kill you while you're still living.

I think this captures people's attention

because people don't really understand cats very well,

and they tend to interpret their behaviors,

maybe in negative or malicious ways.

So, they think that maybe their cat's plotting revenge

on them for taking that vacation

or because they don't like their new boyfriend.

So, he would really project

a lot of emotional states onto their cats

that their cats is probably not really going through,

and I think, to an extent, again,

there's this morbid fascination

and maybe some people actually like the idea

that their cat might eat them after they die.

A lot of people that I've talked to about this

have said, If it helps my cat survive,

I don't care, I'll be dead. [laughing]

So, perhaps, some people take a little pride

in the naughtiness of cats, or this idea that cats,

because they're perceived as somehow less trainable

or less loyal than dogs,

that they're automatically going to do something

that, maybe to us, seems terrible, like eating bodies.

I would just like to emphasize that, again,

this research, as fascinating as it is

doesn't mean that we can tell

if any particular cat is going to eat an individual.

It doesn't mean that most cats will do this.

It's been observed, but it could be

just that the circumstance have to be pretty extreme

for this behavior to come up.

So, it's been great,

and a little creepy, chatting with you.

Thanks so much for joining us today.

Thank you so much for having me.

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