Welfare weds single mothers to the public weal freeing fathers to carouse like feral cats.

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Prof Harris told BBC Radio 4's Today programme feral cats could grow to be "surprisingly large".

BBC: When is a wildcat really a wildcat?

Others are more exotic: sterilizing feral cats and then releasing them back to their colonies so they depopulate themselves.

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In Australia, Prof Harris said, there had been feral cats shot weighing 40lbs (18kgs) and 5ft 9in (1.7m) long.

BBC: When is a wildcat really a wildcat?

In 2002 the island set about eradicating its population of feral cats.

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Feral cats live and die anonymously - the best they can hope for is to get shovelled to the side of the road.

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"There are some quite big feral cats out there, " he said.

BBC: When is a wildcat really a wildcat?

While the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Cat Protection League re-house about 125, 000 stray or unwanted cats a year, the League guesses that there may be about 1.2m feral cats in Britain.

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This causes another problem: feral cats.

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Feral Cats and Their Management.

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Stephen Harris, professor of environmental sciences at Bristol University, suggested that rather than escaped big cats or wildcats, the creatures being spotted might be domestic cats that have gone feral.

BBC: When is a wildcat really a wildcat?