Research overview: why cats bring prey home

Many owners are puzzled when their well-fed cat carries dead or live prey indoors. This overview surveys the leading interpretations, including the transport of prey to a safe location for consumption away from competitors, a behaviour rooted in the felid tendency to move kills to cover. It addresses the popular but weakly supported idea that cats are teaching humans to hunt, drawing parallels with mothers provisioning kittens, and weighs the evidence cautiously. The topic illustrates how a common household behaviour connects to natural prey-handling and caching tendencies, and why hunger is a poor predictor of whether a cat brings prey home.