Surveys of cat populations in Taiwan from 2001 to 2009
Date Issued
2014
Date
2014
Author(s)
Chen, Li-Huan
Abstract
This longitudinal study aims to investigate the demographic information of household cats in Taiwan and discuss its implications with social changes from 2001 to 2009 biennially. Household cats were surveyed biennially by randomly dialed telephone survey. A structured questionnaire was designed to obtain household demographics and population-associated data on pet ownership. Our biennial investigations of cat populations from 2001 to 2009 were 238,727 cats, 276,037 cats, 266,859 cats, 345,623 cats and 346,667 cats. The corresponding percentages of cat owning households in Taiwan were 2.06%, 2.31%, 2.20%, 2.76%, and 2.80%. For every one hundred people investigated, there were 1.07 cats, 1.22 cats, 1.17 cats, 1.51 cats, and 1.50 cats. Total cat population in Taiwan increased since 2007, but the average number of cats per household decrease from 1.71 cats per household in 2001 to 1.59 cats per household in 2009. The study concluded that the increase in cat ownership might be caused by the following reasons: (1) dramatic rise in life stress and social/environmental/economic pressures of owners who had strong needs of attachment/self-objective fulfillment and comfort, (2) less care and attention required for cats than dogs, and (3) the availability of care-giving for cat is decreasing with the declining of the number of people within a household in Taiwan. In this study we surveyed not only household cat ownership-associated data in Taiwan but also combined with factors associated with social change to analyze the trends in cat population in Taiwan. Finally we collected literature about worldwide pet population studies, historical and psychological perspectives on the human-animal bond and proposed strategies about pet population control.
Subjects
貓數
家貓
連結關係
寵物
社會變遷
SDGs
Type
thesis
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