>>5000955Domestic cats are dumped in the wild en masse by humans and they can only establish a foothold as long as humans are simultaneously shooting every larger predator because "muh sheep herdin" "muh cattul ranching" "without me watching the fucking things because its my god given right as an ameristralian to do jack shit".
Any time and place large predator control halts the feral cat population plummets to almost nothing, with the only present individuals being those who have recently escaped/been released and are weeks away from death.
Bobcats and lynxes have lived alongside coyotes and wolves for eons.
Your dumb toxo rat is nowhere near being as cool as a lynx. Domesticated cats can't even exterminate rats. They just chase them out of sight (but not out of your food) and munch on slow breeding songbirds that just didn't evolve the instincts to avoid small cats.