Why Do Cats like Fish?

I was just pondering on one of life’s imponderables, why do cats like fish? I don’t even own a cat, but a local cat came to my door to visit tonight. This cat hangs around, but he’s never come to visit at my door – and meow to me, no less. I knew what was afoot right away. Earlier in the day I had prepared a meal with fish and traces of that smell were still in the air. The cat smelled the fish and wanted it!

If you look at it, cats are natively carnivores. In their natural habitat they hunt, kill and eat their prey. In fact, I recently read about some research that was done, which determined that if you don’t feed a cat store-bought food and put it somewhere where they can hunt mice, rats, etc., once they get back into the swing of it they become healthier. I’ve seen a lot of fat domestic cats that don’t look particularly healthy.

Cats are known for chasing and hunting mice, rats, birds, and other critters that are smaller than them. (I’ve even seen a cat or two chase a small dog, although I don’t think they wanted to eat it – but, who knows). Therefore, it’s understandable from these hunting preferences that they would like these types of feline culinary delights on their menu. Would they eat them if they didn’t like them?

We are also quite familiar with the fact that cats don’t like water – which brings us to our dilemma. Have you ever seen a cat go fishing? Or jump into a body of water in hot pursuit of a rainbow trout, or (heaven forbid) a catfish? If felix domesticus doesn’t hunt creatures of the deep, how did he acquire the taste for them?

I’ve seen pictures of bears standing in the middle of a river amidst rushing rapids where they swipe a fish out of the water for dinner. Many of you have probably seen such pictures. Now get that picture in your mind and replace the bear with your tabby (or someone else’s tabby if you don’t have one). Got it? OK, now tell me, how likely is that scenario?

On the flip side of the coin, have you ever seen any fish running across your backyard, to entice your cat to chase it? I think not.

Maybe some day I’ll write a proposed answer to this question, a la Rudyard Kipling, but for now I’ll just leave the question open for speculation.