You must log in or # to comment.
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
Letting? Letting what? Blood?
It means renting in the UK
Uh, speak English.
Ok boomer
Here’s a quid, go hire a brain
Quid? Is that short for squid? Or is it a legal term?
Letting you sleep in their house lol
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.
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.
and there is this whole thing about birds having a wings.
i am the owner of an indoor cat and i am all for keeping cats indoors because of how many dead cats i see on the roads in my relatively densely populated urban area. if i won the lottery or something and i would be moving into a house with a garden, i would be scared to let the cat out because of the danger to her, not the birds.
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.
it’s more natural
it may very well be, but what most people don’t realize is that the natural life of wild animals is not a disney fairy tale. their life expectancy is a lot shorter than that of the household pets and their death is often nothing to envy.
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.
Missed opportunity…purrview.
So do they have free access or do they have to be carried in and out? That’s a very cool catio. And fwiw…thanks from a stranger for keeping a few more murdermittens from killing random critters.
Haha damn, totally missed it.
It’s actually significantly more expansive than it looks. Part of the bridge you see runs under our deck, and then on the other side there is an enclosed ramp up to our kitchen window. Another part of it forks off to the front of the deck so they have a primo sunbathing spot .We simply unlock the little cat door that was installed in the window screen, and they are out.
Thanks for the kind words. We feel good about the compromise of letting them outside, but not letting them kill all the surrounding wildlife.
Very cool setup for some happy cats. Nice work.
Yeah…I think I will just stick with walks.
Right, I couldn’t remember the word “catio.”
IDK if it’s even a real word, just a portmanteau that has become common.
Thor: “All words are made up”.
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.
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.
Cats are a recent addition to Australia. Cats have been in the UK fir thousands of years.
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
Yes, specifically focusing on birds. That is the focus I usually see when cat hunting comes up online.
It makes sense small animals that can’t fly would be easier prey - and therefore more likely to be impacted by predation - but I guess only birds are cute or something.
How do I prevent cats from coming in underneath the fence though?
Chicken wire both keeps pest animals out and acts as a base for any climbing plants you may put against your fence.
You can just staple it on. Paint over it to match your fence color if you want to keep it from rusting
Nothing prevents “in” with cats. You can only plan for “out”.
I just want to stop them from shitting in my yard where the kids play.
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.
Fair point! Added more emphasis to that bit!
Holy shit that is an old cat lmao
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”.
Same. I had an outdoor cat growing up (won’t be doing that again) and whenever we where in a situation where we could not let him out hr would do the wildest shit. I remember my dad answering the door and standing so he was blocking the exit and the cat did this wild Prince of Persia move and lept of some furniture, sprang off the door and went over my dad and the guy he was talking to heads.
Couldn’t figure out how to get through the pet friendly mesh door though
My cat was a street cat that I got around 9 months old. Very spoiled indoor cat. She still tries to run outside and escape sometimes, she’s too curious.
The local native bird population here has being driven out by invasive species. Where are the cats when you need them?
That was your cat.
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.
What’s wrong with that? My first cat was allowed in and out whenever he wanted. It’s not a flawless system but it has some merits. Why should a cat be locked up like a prisoner?
It’s like the old saying: if you love someone, set them free. If they come back, they’re yours.
That said, our current cat does stay home 24/7. This was a conscious decision before we got her (less worries, less fleas), but she turns out to be such a scaredy-cat that she would never leave the house even if given the choice. I’ve tried to let her a few times as an experiment. Even when we just have some guests over - whom she has already met, and who come regularly enough - she still hides under the bed.
Basically it depends on the cat. Some cats live their best lives when allowed both indoors and outdoors.
Well, unless you live in Africa, they’re an invasive species. Cats hunt and attack wildlife regardless of whether or not they are hungry, which was great for humans looking to keep mice out of the granary but not so great for songbirds in the modern era. They do immense harm to bird populations in general, but even if you don’t care about that, why would you let it:
Contract FIV
Get into fights with other animals or cats
Get hit by a car
Get ticks and other parasites
Get wounded or eaten by predatorsWhen on the other hand you could just keep it inside and make sure it has enrichment. If your cat really is miserable without the outdoors, catios are a thing. Cats are pets, not prisoners, and as animals that are not native to the majority of the places they end up in, they are dependent on their humans to keep them safe and out of nature’s way.
To add to the other comment just to drive home how bad they are:
This chart is about human-related bird deaths.
(Also keep in mind if you just look at the lines, its even worse than it looks at a glance because the values are separated strangely. Like 10/25/50 million all being equally spaced out, and 600 being the halfway point of 0 and 2400.)
Some people are really stubborn about allowing their cats to roam freely
Before you start judging these cats were rescued and declawed years before we adopted them.
Yeah, that’s illegal where I’m from. I glossed over that bit.
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.
That’s what happens when you cheap out on the wet food, Debbie.
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.
Hey, you can find land barons on there to charge you extortionate rent for use of a boxroom
Exciting news, Zoopla is now BONTO!
That cat tried to saunter in my patio door this morning. I don’t even live on the same continent
You don’t own ginger tabbies. You lease them.
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.
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
Not anymore I guess.
