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Great Horned Owl threat to big house cats? (1 Viewer)

crazyfingers

crazyfingers

Well-known member
My cats have a cat flap door that lets them into an enclosed area behind my house. They can't get out and ground based predictors, coyotes, fox, etc.. can't get in.

Last night for the first time ever I saw what I believe to be, because of it's huge size, a great horned owl perched in a tree above the cat's enclosed area. I guess it could also have been a snowy owl but I hear the great horned owl in the woods sometimes. Because it was night, I could only see it silhouetted against the sky but it was large. It flew off after a minute.

That evening I locked that cat's flap door to keep them in.

These cats of mine are big. One is 18 pounds and the other is 24 pounds.

How big a threat is a great horned owl to my cats?
 
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It's not that I'm worried that the owl would carry my cats off but would it try to swoop down and severely injure a cat and try to eat it in place? I understand that it could attack from behind.
 
A friend of mine had his cat taken by a GHO although they were not as big as yours. He let the cat out the front door and watched as it walked down the driveway. A GHO swooped down and took flew off with it. Not sure of the size of the cat.
 
Maroon Jay said:
A friend of mine had his cat taken by a GHO although they were not as big as yours. He let the cat out the front door and watched as it walked down the driveway. A GHO swooped down and took flew off with it. Not sure of the size of the cat.
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If the “owl flew off with it”, the cat would have been very small indeed.
 
crazyfingers said:
It's not that I'm worried that the owl would carry my cats off but would it try to swoop down and severely injure a cat and try to eat it in place? I understand that it could attack from behind.
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Unlikely, I would say. There would be too much chance that an attack on cats that size would lead to the injury (or death) of the owl and few predators would risk that.
 
Great Horned Owls are one of the most ferocious predators and will attack and eat almost anything. There are records of them killing birds as large as Ospreys and Barred Owls, and in the northern part of their range they routinely kill and eat adult porcupines, which range from ten to twenty pounds. (Occasionally they do die from ingesting porcupine quills.) Of course, they wouldn’t be able to carry off large prey, but they kill it and eat their fill on the spot. So I don’t think a Great Horned Owl would hesitate to attack a large cat.

Dave
 
Nightjar61 said:
Great Horned Owls are one of the most ferocious predators and will attack and eat almost anything. There are records of them killing birds as large as Ospreys and Barred Owls, and in the northern part of their range they routinely kill and eat adult porcupines, which range from ten to twenty pounds. (Occasionally they do die from ingesting porcupine quills.) Of course, they wouldn’t be able to carry off large prey, but they kill it and eat their fill on the spot. So I don’t think a Great Horned Owl would hesitate to attack a large cat.
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Great Horned Owls don’t stun their prey with great force before going in for the kill like some falcons do, but drop down on it from no considerable height and squeeze it to death in their powerful talons. For a 3.5 lb owl to try this with a healthy 16 lb cat capable of fighting back with claws and fangs would be hazardous in the extreme, maybe even suicidal. Owls, like other active predators, simply cannot afford to risk serious injury affecting their continuing ability to successfully hunt by attacking such dangerous prey.
 
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fugl said:
Great Horned Owls don’t stun their prey with great force before going in for the kill like some falcons do, but drop down on it from no considerable height and squeeze it to death in their powerful talons. For a 3.5 lb owl to try this with a healthy 16 lb cat capable of fighting back with claws and fangs would be hazardous in the extreme, maybe even suicidal. Owls, like other active predators, simply cannot afford to risk serious injury affecting their continuing ability to successfully hunt by attacking such dangerous prey.
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Eurasian Eagle Owl, larger I know but closely related, have been known to predate domestic cats and dogs...and foxes quite often.

https://idus.us.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11441/66144/DO%C3%91ANA.2-2Marcad.-21-37.pdf?sequence=1
 
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Well down my road between the house next door and the next there appears to be a great horned owl dead on the side of the road. About 17 inches from top of head to tips of the talons. If it's the one I saw it would likely have happened during our extreme cold spell I expect.

May post a photo later. Don't know how territorial they are in winter, whether another one was likely around too. Will see what I can research on that.

ETA. I've read they are very teritorial but not necessarily so much in winter. If it had a mate I guess the mate could still be around or it could have headed off in search of a new one. I guess these owls lay eggs early so not much time to find a new mate before nestimg time.
 
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No idea. There is about 150 acres of wooded conservation land in back of my property. Lots of gray squirrels. It could also have just died of old age though right by the road seems unlikey. Picking up some roadkill at the wrong time? But my road is not busy. Often more than 20 minutes between cars. Will likely never know.
 
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crazyfingers said:
It's not that I'm worried that the owl would carry my cats off but would it try to swoop down and severely injure a cat and try to eat it in place? I understand that it could attack from behind.
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This is a definite concern. A friend was attacked in a tree stand after dark. They attack movement. Swooping in and applying those long sharp talons.
 
Yikes. I started this topic over 6 years ago. Since then our 24 pound cat died of cancer.

The 18 pounder is still with us but getting old. We have two young cats. One is another really big boy. The smallest is still a lot larger than most cats and probably twice the size of any of my daughter's three cats.

So far the owl question has not really come up again. I rarely hear it out there if at all. Red tail hawks hover around the neighborhood frequently but I've never seen one even appear to be thinking about the cats.

The cats still go out into their fenced area and mainly catch snakes, frogs, worms, moles and chipmunks though once the big young one managed to catch a house sparrow.

Here is the fence. It surrounds the back part of the house and the entire deck. It can't be seen in the photo but more wire mesh hangs down from the top so there is no way that the cats can climb out.

2022 04 29 14 31 48.JPG
 
fugl said:
Very little to cats that size, I would say, considering that the owls top out at well under 4 lbs.
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I have only had three cats over these past 20 years. One a coon cat, died at 26 pounds but even with his size he was an indoor cat a big baby. The wild owls are predators, killers by nature. They know instinctively how to kill their prey, I would still be concerned. …. a surprised strike at the right spot on top of a cat. I don’t know, I would place my bet on the Owl.
 
crazyfingers said:
Yikes. I started this topic over 6 years ago. Since then our 24 pound cat died of cancer.

The 18 pounder is still with us but getting old. We have two young cats. One is another really big boy. The smallest is still a lot larger than most cats and probably twice the size of any of my daughter's three cats.

So far the owl question has not really come up again. I rarely hear it out there if at all. Red tail hawks hover around the neighborhood frequently but I've never seen one even appear to be thinking about the cats.

The cats still go out into their fenced area and mainly catch snakes, frogs, worms, moles and chipmunks though once the big young one managed to catch a house sparrow.

Here is the fence. It surrounds the back part of the house and the entire deck. It can't be seen in the photo but more wire mesh hangs down from the top so there is no way that the cats can climb out.

View attachment 1554314
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Cats are a bigger threat to birdlife than birds (owls & hawks for example) are to cats. Not so good if your cats are catching the local wildlife. You state that they have caught one house sparrow, but that they take snakes, frogs, worms, moles and chipmunks. Wildlife takes a bit of a knock from domestic cats. On the plus side (?), the fence does at least restrict them from rangeing more widely and making an even bigger impact on the local wildlife.
 

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