Can we tell how big cats are doing by the number of wild dogs in the area?

[Sully]

A clue? Non discriminatory predation of mesocarnivores from apex felids vs apex canids' focus on other canid mesocarnivores. Cats, when at the top, seem better at subjugating predators below them.

"Indeed, risk of mortality from large felids was identical for intra‐ and interfamily mesocarnivores (5.8%), whereas risk of mortality from large canids was more than five times higher for smaller canids (14.3%) than for mesocarnivores within other families (2.7%; Fig. 3d; FamDiff x LargeFam 

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 = 8.73, P  = 0.003)."

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ele.13489 Reply