Don’t let your cats be outdoor cats. It seriously harms local bird populations. Cats are murderous little shits.
Make a little fully-fenced-in area if you think they need to be outside.
Fully enclosed, like a catio. Fences are often nothing to cats.
I made a catio in my backyard (3rd one attached the house) because our little bastards will kill everything in a kilometre radius. Not that we've ever tested that, but we've seen how they act when creatures smaller then them are out and about within their purview.
It's bad for the cats too since the likelihood of getting sick, hurt or dying in an accident, fight, whatever is much higher. Some work from a gut feeling that letting them roam freely is better for them because it's more natural, but I don't think that's supported by the studies in the same way that the likelihood of them getting hurt from roaming freely is.
Agreed.
Also it being more natural is irrelevant. They aren’t wild animals. They’re pets. They’re much better fed than anything they’d compete with, so they aren’t having to worry about being sparing with their caloric expenditure. That’s also not natural.
Get a catio, don’t let your cat roam wild.
Cats kill huge numbers of birds. Most small bird species have high reproduction rates, and crowding results in higher death rates from increased disease and parasite spread, competition for food, and all the good shelter from predators being taken. Higher death rates from one cause (say, cats) results in less death rates from crowding-related causes. I haven't seen any evidence that, in general, cat hunting ends up actually impacting bird populations.
Specific species of birds in certain locations have been harmed by cats: the Wikipedia page list several examples in Australia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_predation_on_wildlife). So it's good to have local awareness if there's a particular vulnerable population. But in general, keeping cats inside is only for their own safety and won't impact bird population one way or another.
The fact that several species in Australia are now extinct kinda shows cats do harm bird populations. Cats are usually an invasive species and hundreds of them in an area can decimate local wildlife. Overcrowding only kill birds when there are too many, while cats will always kill birds. There are definitely places where it matters more, like on small islands, but in general any invasive species can massively shift ecosystems.
You shared a Wikipedia link with sources[1] (and also numerous sections and assertions in the Wikipedia article itself) showing that cats generally impact wildlife populations but came to the conclusion that they don't. Am I missing something here? Is it because you're specifically focusing on birds?
[1] https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2656.13745
5 CONCLUSIONS
Free-roaming domestic cats affect wildlife through predation, disease, hybridization, and indirect fear and competition effects. Our review highlights biases and gaps in the global literature on these impacts, including a focus on oceanic islands, Australia, Europe and North America, and on rural areas, predation, impacts of unowned cats, and impacts at population and species levels. Key research advances needed to better understand cat impacts include more studies in underrepresented regions (Africa, Asia, South America), on impacts other than predation, and on management methods designed to reduce impacts. This review also supports past studies in illustrating that cats negatively affect wildlife populations and communities in most cases in which these potential impacts were evaluated
Beyond the bird or wildlife problem, outdoor free roaming cats are just generally a problem. I have two cats and an outdoor cat likes to come and taunt them at the window: it seriously stresses them out. It'll go so far as climbing up screens and damaging them. Cats will also often mark people's houses.
I walk my cats on leashes. I don't understand why cat owners can't understand that people don't want their cat around unmanaged.
Also it's not good for the cats either.
The stray cats I've known who found indoor lives never want to go out again. It's the spoiled, pampered cats who incorrectly think they're tough who want to go outside. The cats who've seen some shit know inside is where it's at.
Time to be down voted to oblivion for my parents' exception to the rule: their outside cat just celebrated his 25th birthday. He's no longer an energetic, murderous little shit, but a grumpy no longer able to murder murderous little shit.
Very precious, 10/10 to pet
I'm not going to downvote you, but just because you know a lucky cat doesn't mean being outdoors isn't bad for the cat.
It's like hearing about some person who's reached 100 years old who has a cigar and a shot of bourbon every day and thinking that it's the shot and the cigar that caused the longevity instead of just the luck of the draw.
exception to the rule
🙂
Yeah, I'm aware. I pretended to not see it because of all the people who would ignore it and consider your post confirmation that they can let their cat be an outdoor cat.
It may not be abstractly good for cats to be allowed outdoors (my family growing up had a cat eaten by the neighbors dogs, a cat get hit by a car, multiple cats get serious injuries from fights with neighborhood cats, etc.) But having been in a household with a series of cats that only went out when they asked to be let out: they ask to be let out every day. It is completely inconsistent with my experience that a cat would "never want to go outside again".
I know this will be unpopular on this site, but outdoor cats are the nirm here. Most places wont even let you adopt a cat if you cant let it outside. They have been here for thousands of years aleady so any potential damage to wildlife would have happened long ago. Until recently the RSPB even posted research that argued cats dont have any meaningful impact on wildlife species here and their most commonly preyed on species are actually increasing in population. Cats also just like to roam, a house cats territory is on the order of acres of land and houses in the UK are too small to offer them enough space, and they tend to get depressed and agitated if kept inside a small area.
So while in North America its better to keep them indoors, generally in the UK its better to let them roam.
When I was younger our indoor/outdoor (declawed) cats were suddenly gaining a lot of weight starting every spring and slimming down through the winter. We put the cats on a special diet, monitored how much food they got, forbid giving scraps at dinner or while snacking. After a year of this and it finally seeming to work through the winter, regular vet check up revealed one fat gained almost 2 pounds in a month since spring.
As we were bringing the cat home we ran into our neighbor, who asked where we caught the cat. We informed him she was our cat, and had been for 6 years. He had a eureka moment "So that's where that cat comes from!" Before laughing through an explanation of how he thought his daughters brought home a cat after being told no because every afternoon the cat was on their deck waiting for the girls to come out. Turns out once weather was good enough to sunbathe outside, the girls would take some meat and cheese out to the back deck and our cats came over to investigate, leading to the tradition of the neighbor girls constantly feeding our cats through the spring and summer, the cats only losing weight in the winter cause it was too cold to be out on the deck.
one fat gained almost 2 pounds
Excellent Freudian slip
Such a lovely story 🧡
Apart from the declawed bit :/
And the whole letting cats roam freely outdoors bit. But other than that yeah, nice story.
Before you start judging these cats were rescued and declawed years before we adopted them.
the girls would take some meat and cheese out to the back deck and our cats came over to investigate, leading to the tradition of the neighbor girls constantly feeding our cats through the spring and summer
Hell yeah they did. You've got to.
There's about 0.2 cats for every household that thinks they've a cat.
Yeah, but that one guy who posted about accidentally owning five identical grey cats really skews the numbers.
cats georg is an outlier and should not have been counted.
He didn't own them, they were just in his neighbourhood.
Wtf is a Zoopla...? It took me like 3 tries to not read that as "zootopia"
It's a sales and letting agency that operates at least in the UK, dunno about elsewhere
Fucking Zoopla? Wtf is that name
It was scientifically designed to appeal to a generation of people that will never be able to afford to use it.
Exciting news, Zoopla is now BONTO!
That cat's living like a king there - nice room, comfy bed. I see why it left you.
zoopla?
UK real estate site
It's the budget version of Zootopia.
Sounds like a made up site from Silicon Valley
That's what happens when you cheap out on the wet food, Debbie.
Not anymore I guess.
That was your cat.
You don't own ginger tabbies. You lease them.
That cat tried to saunter in my patio door this morning. I don’t even live on the same continent
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