Some statistics

• In England, one cat returned after three weeks from a location 65 kilometers away;
• in Holland, after five months from 150 kilometers away;
• in the state of Georgia (USA) from 320 kilometers away;
• and in the city of Lille in northern France, one mother cat returned after seven months from a distance of 700 kilometers!

There are also reports from the Urals of cats finding their way home from a distance of 1500 kilometers. What kind of “surroundings” do you need to run through to get to the right place?

Experiments

Experiments with transported domestic cats have shown that their ability to find their way home is incomparable to that of dogs. Half of the cats were successful at a distance of 5 kilometers, and only one returned from 12 kilometers away. Cats, which are known for their strong attachment to their territory, cannot be expected to do otherwise.

Moreover, cats that live outdoors significantly surpass animals that live in apartments in terms of these “talents.”

Several years ago, a German zoologist took cats from owners living in Kiel. He placed them in closed boxes and drove them around the city for a long time along complex winding routes to confuse the animals as much as possible. Then he took them to a field a few kilometers from the city, where a large maze with 24 exits had been built in advance. The passages of the maze diverged from the central part at an angle of 15 degrees. The maze was closed so that neither the sun nor the stars could help the cats. Each test subject entered the maze and wandered around until it found the exit.

Surprisingly, in the vast majority of cases, the cats chose the passage that led in the direction of their home.

When the results of the experiment were first reported at an international conference, most of those present were skeptical. Of course, the tests were conducted in a strictly scientific manner, but the results of the experiment indicated such extraordinary sensitivity to home that it was difficult to believe.

Perhaps cats are capable of creating a kind of map in their memory, remembering all the turns made by the van that transported them around the city, and then comparing everything and determining the correct route home?

Tests conducted later in the United States refuted this point of view. In a new experiment, the cats were given a sleeping pill before the trip, and they fell asleep and slept soundly the entire way. Surprisingly, after waking up, they all knew the way home!

The power of a magnet

Since then, many experiments have been conducted with various animals, and today there is no doubt that many species (including humans) are sensitive to the Earth's magnetic field, which helps them (and us) find their way home without using their eyesight.

This is evidenced by the fact that when test subjects were exposed to strong magnets, they lost their ability to determine the correct way back.