Watch: You’ve Never Cheered For A Chipmunk The Way This Little Guy Will Make You Cheer

Did you know that your beloved, cute little kitty is actually one of the most efficient, ruthless killers you will ever encounter? A recent study proved it, when scientists attached special “kitty cams” to the collars of household cats whose owners let them roam free outdoors.

The cameras caught the adorable cats acting less like lovable little Fluffy, and more like The Terminator. Of the 66 cats given cameras, the resulting videos showed 30 percent of them stalking and killing pretty much any other creature that looked killable.

The study captured just a microcosm of the cat-related carnage. By one estimate, from the American Bird Conservancy, kitties, including feral cats, slaughter 4 billion — yes, billion — small animals every year in the United States alone.

That’s one of the reasons this video will make you stand up and cheer — or at least smile. Watch what happens when the house cat in the video thinks it’s bringing home its latest trophy, a dead chipmunk.

But it turns out this chipmunk was not as dead as the cat thought. Not only is it clever enough to play dead, the little guy waits until just the right moment until…

Well, you’ll have to watch the video to see what happens.

By the way, most people may believe that cats killing mice, birds, and other small creatures is simply nature taking its course, and nothing to worry about. But that’s not really the case.

Yes, cats have an instinct to chase down and swat most anything that moves. But as writer Amanda Marcotte pointed out, “[T]he only reason there are so many cats out there is because of people; we introduce them to new environments and sadly, we often let the reproduce rapidly without any check until they’ve completely overrun the place.”

The massive slaughter of small wildlife by domestic cats is not just “nature,” but, in fact, a troubling environmental problem caused by human beings — just like most other troubling environmental problems.

It’s also worth nothing that cats are not born with a killer instinct. Chasing and swatting may be innate instincts, but killing is a skill kittens learn from their mommies.

That’s why the best thing for your cat and for the wildlife in your neighborhood is simply to keep your cat indoors. Cats are dangerous to other creatures, but going outside is also dangerous for cats.