The 1 to 4 billion animals killed by outdoor cats every year: X_X
Not to mention all the outdoor cats that are themselves killed or horribly injured.
I know a guy who went through 5 cats in a few months because he was getting them, letting them out, and they were getting hit by cars since he lives on a super busy road that has heavy semi traffic.
It really reminds me of that one joke “I keep having to buy a new car because my neighbors dog keeps eating it” " it sounds like you’re just feeding cats to the neighbors dog"
Dude just didn’t seem to grasp simple addition that his new cat + outside in a bad area = squish
Sounds like Pet Sematary.
What, he was like “huh Snuffy hasn’t been around for a few days. Welp, time to get a new cat I suppose!” every two weeks?
The only cat I’ve had that I’ve felt okay with letting roam was a stray that came to us declawed, so he was mostly harmless. We still ended up making him an inside cat because we caught him sneaking into the neighbor’s house to steal their cat’s food and poop in its litterbox.
Declawed cats are a coyotes favorite meal. Big enough to feed the kids and cant even fight back
Not a lot of coyotes in our neck of the woods, but the little orange moron kept writing checks with the neighbor cats that his disarmed front paws couldn’t cash, so he was always coming back with scratches. One of the other reasons we stopped letting him out.
That is an oddly specific culinary preference for a wild animal to have.
Easy to catch fattened meals are a pretty clear cut preference
Is that how that works though? I don’t know anything about Coyotes, but I know things generally know better than to fuck with cats.
… Are you asking if a coyote can eat a cat?
Do you understand they hunt deer? Theyre not really worried about a cat with clawless arthritis, horn and hoof wounds are much bigger threats.
Predators dont know better than to not fuck with cats, most of them know to grab them before they get up a tree.
Declawing is cruel. It’s basically cutting off your first knuckle.
I would never do it to a cat, but when this particular one wandered into my then-girlfriend’s house one night and decided he lived there, he was already declawed. He never seemed to suffer too badly from it, fortunately.
But what if he was a guest there? Maybe the neighbour’s cat told him “make yourself at home?” Did you even ask him? Psh …
We actually found out when my wife was over visiting, and he came in through the cat door, locked eyes with her, froze, and slowly backed out of the house. 😅
Yup, fuck your outdoor cats.
Absolute environmental disaster, they need to be spayed and neutered and occasionally culled by any competent local government.
You’ll also need to ban pet cats from walking outside without a leash. Our cats were neutered, didn’t stop them from killing any mice or birds they could get their paws on.
The reason they need to be spayed and neutered instead of outright killed is because culls don’t really work on animals that reproduce that quickly. Whenever a spot opens up for another cat to make its territory, it gets immediately claimed. There are a ton of research papers that show spaying and neutering is more effective at lowering stray populations, and that euthanization is more costly on top of being less effective.
I was talking about the cats that are kept as pets, not stray cats. I guess it varies from country to country, but most cats walking around outside in Norway are pets (~90%). Reducing the stray cat population to zero wouldn’t fix the issue of cats killing all the small wildlife unless pet cats are also kept inside.
I wasn’t saying anything against neutering cats.
If the cat never exits the home then idgaf honestly, but if it escapes then it should be eliminated in the most effective way possible. That is my stance, an unattended cat is a stray for all intents and purposes.
Wow that’s cruel. Someone’s cat gets loose, they can’t find it yet, and you think it should be killed. Good job killing Fluffy because he escaped.
But letting it slaughter little birds is not cruel, somehow? A manmade pest with no beneficial role to nature is somehow much better to you than functioning ecosystems? If a cat gets out, the owner has made a mistake and will now deal with the consequences.
Wonderful plumage, Norwegian Blues.
I’d say we take this one step further and declaw, spay, neuter, and keep a lot of people on a leash.
I miss the internet where people could laugh at a silly comics instead of writing and upvoting this.
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Who says that they’re not?
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“Who cares that I club seals? Johnny next door clubs 50 walruses. Sure theyre both going extinct now, but he gets 50 a day! I only get 1!! How could you care that Im clubbing seals with all those dead walruses?”
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Im a professional ecologist, there, animal abuser.
But go on, keep telling me how you failed middle school bio so hard that you know better than the global scientific community
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Mate, we’re old enough now to have to actually fix shit instead of waxing lyrical about our youth. Let’s work together, and still have a laugh.
Humans kill much, much more animals.
Outdoor cat: “today I killed 300 birds and permanently altered the local ecosystem”
Indoor cat: “hehe I shit in a box”
And so begins a new battle in the eternal war between Americans with indoor cats and others with outdoor cats.
It’s pretty difficult to actually find an indoor cat in the UK. In the US it’s common.
Of course it is difficult to find an indoor cat, you only see them inside a house.
Which is fitting because, in the end, when the hell have the British cared about the fallout of anything they do
🤣 seems like the yanks learned that pretty well from us then.
Lol American is the fallout of you people sending all your crazy religious fucks across the ocean and hoping for the best
To be fair I wouldn’t say we ‘sent them’ more that they left because they couldn’t oppress people as much as they wanted.
Heeeyy! We just kicked them out, we didn’t know they’d go and start a new country overseas!
We honestly should have killed them there and then, nip it in the bud.
I guess we in Finland are Americand now lol
We’re more worried about the cats wellbeing though than the birds.
Why are Finns so worried about cats? There’s always plenty of cats.
With a name like Kusimulkku I should have guessed. I wouldn’t call you American but you are one of the weirdest countries in Europe. A language designed to confuse with an obsessive dedication to double-consanants. I assume your cats are as unsociable as your people.
What’s with this random driveby on Finland and their language?? We’re just talking about cats
It’s called banter. Light-hearted joshing. I love the Swedish Mongols; very amusing people.
Don’t think the Finn’s took kindly to your joshing, bud u_u
Probably just seemed so out of nowhere
Confusing written language seems like an odd critique from some with UK in their name.
Alright Moomin wrangler! Less of your cheek.
Our cats are indoors. They used to be outdoors then some cunt shot one with an air rifle.
That cunt was in that moment a better person and more responsible manager of your animals. Cats are a manmade plague that destroy the ecosystem.
Seems like we brought the reddit with us
Of course, anybody who used to be on reddit with more than half a brain would rather be here instead. Feel free to keep running from regular public opinions on public forums.
Found the yank
I hope you found the miscreant and shot them in the arsehole with a cricket bat!?
My neighbour at the time was a lovely rough diamond type with a big knife scar down his face. He said he had an idea who it might have been and was going to have words.
We moved out of that area not long after.
We moved out of that area not long after.
…burying the bodies.
I’m not so sure both about Americans having their cats indoors, and “others” having it the opposite way. I have never been to the UK or the US, but most owners I had seen kept their cats indoors. Except for Georgia (the country), where cats seem to be treated as some sort of weed that grows on it’s own
Except for Georgia (the country), where cats seem to be treated as some sort of weed that grows on it’s own
I like this phrasing. I’d love to hear more about how you came to this conclusion.
There are a lot of strays around at first sight, but then I found out that at least about a third of them have owner/owners because they sometimes stick to several places. A lot of people also care for the strays and check them for issues not taking 'em home, some initiatives are doing neutering and finding homes for treated cats.
I heard it’s somewhat similar in Türkiye, everyone loves cats but mostly don’t want to care about them above feeding them when met. Don’t know if outdoor cats are popular there, though
There’s plenty of Americans with outdoor cats.
And thats why the wild felines are going extinct in the british isles.
Ay, but tradition right? Fuck the natives, as is british tradition
Yeah the British really do have a history of royally fucking over whole eco systems. Brought rabbits to Australia thinking they would be a good food source.
Except they bred like well rabbits. And destroyed whole eco systems. So the British imported foxes to eat the rabbits. Except literally every other native species is easier for a fox to kill than a fast rabbit.
Fucking morons.
That’s a bit of a harsh take considering it was one guy on the 19th century who didn’t know better. Looking at it he brought 13 rabbits for his private estate - I don’t think the science was there for extended Environmental Impact Studies back then - just some rich guy making a minor change to his place having unintended consequences so branding an entire country as fucking morons is a bit much.
Okay. One English guy was a fucking moron with regards to rabbits. Plenty others were morons for other things in Australia.
Awesome, glad that’s settled, just a minor blip on what would be Australia’s impeccable record of care for both indigenous creatures, and indigenous people.
Should we talk about the English record of care for indigenous people, creatures and artifacts?
So are all the birds dead in the UK
Nope. And the RSPB doesn’t believe cats are a concern:
The UK’s largest bird charity, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), is not particularly concerned about the impact of cats on the British mainland.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/14/cats-kill-birds-wildlife-keep-indoors
And a Bristol study found cats kill the “doomed” weak and sick birds - not healthy birds: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1474-919X.2008.00836.x
Cats have also been around in the UK significantly longer than many other places. Here in Hawaii they’re a plague on native species that had no such predators before.
That’s a big part of the difference. Cats in the old world are probably fine since everything there has evolved alongside them. But the native species in the Americas haven’t had housecats to worry about until relatively recently in evolutionary terms.
I’m a outdoor cat person but in fairness one issue to consider is that while cats are natural in Europe, their current numbers and general location are something that’s pretty unnatural. I definitely err on the side of not being concerned about it, but I do think it’s something to consider as people have more pets.
Personally I have one cat that has brought in a single frog, and another that exclusively brings in recycling.
Yeah but Hawaii’s ecosystem is different from the mainland, too. Every area is going to handle this differently.
Yes, according to the RSPB habitat destruction from expanding urban areas and farmland is the main threat to bird life in the UK.
When my family had a cat it would mostly catch and bring home earthworms.
When my family had a cat it would mostly catch and bring home earthworms.
I think you had a defective cat. :/
I get lots of leaves and slugs. Occasionally an alive frog, one loves catching them for me but never even attempts to eat it.
The UK used to have a different feline species that was native to the isles.
Its likely going extinct because of the UK obsession with outdoor cats.
Since 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the Cat Specialist Group recognizes Felis silvestris silvestris as the valid scientific name for all European wildcat populations, arguing that it is doubtful that the Scottish wildcat is sufficiently distinct to accord it separate subspecific status.
It’s just a plain old cat, it’s not going extinct.
Old world animals evolved alongside domesticated cats. New world animals did not.
Skill issue. You need to train your wildlife to speak cat.
More importantly, to hear cat.
Our 3 cats kill maybe a total of 5 birds and 10 mice a year. They can’t reproduce and prefer to stay inside for most of the year. They’re not a problem, as many new studies have found out. At least in northern Germany. It might be a bigger problem elsewhere though. Just trying to point out that your criticism may only apply to certain areas.
That’s what you know they have killed. Who knows how much more. They also still get hit by cars, mauled by dogs, attacked by other cats, piss and shit in other people’s yards.
That you know of. I’m a bird lover, I’ve got my biases, admittedly. But no, cats seem to put a very heavy strain on the local bird population.
And you failed to do so.
More like “today someone left food out for me as usual so I didn’t hunt like I would if I were starving”.
70% of bird deaths are from fetal and stray cats, not just “outdoor” cats.
30% of bird deaths is still a lot of bird deaths. I would much prefer if cats were only responsible for 40 small animal extinctions rather than the 60 or so that they’ve caused so far
Not to mention a lot of those “strays” are just the offspring of someone’s unneutered outdoor cat.
A stranger outdoor cat just walked with me for a few blocks on my way home from a dinner party. It was fun to have a five minute feline friend. It’s sad to know they will very likely die long before my indoor cat of a similar age.
You just made me realize I haven’t seen the sweet ol girl by my buddy’s place in a while and now I’m sad :(
Fwiw my childhood indoor/outdoor cat lived to 19 whereas my indoor only cats got terminal cancer at 13. But generally speaking I believe you are correct.
Realistically, outdoor cats don’t travel much. They just hang out in their neighborhood, chill in their favorite spots, etc.
Cats have their territory and that’s where they spend their time, doing cat things. It’s just that an outdoor cat’s territory isn’t limited by walls.
There was a BBC documentary a few years ago where they gave GPS tracking collars to a bunch of cats in a neighbourhood and tracked where they went. Each of the cats had their own territory and favourite locations.
I think I watched this one and also a German documentary. It even showed that elderly cats roam way less then younger ones. Pretty interesting.
I loved that doc! It was fascinating seeing the vast differences in territory. I remember one cat who travelled something like a mile back and forth every day on a really narrow area. There was also a pair of cats that had worked out a little territory share amongst themselves, patrolling the same area but always 12 hours apart from each other.
I think you’re referring to this scientific experiment.
I cannot imagine having an indoor/outdoor cat. I’d worry so much about them while they were away. And if they just disappeared and didn’t return…I don’t know how I could stand it.
We have 3 indoor-only cats. Obviously I’m pretty attached to them.
Sometimes, you gotta do what’s best for your cat. We have one that just couldn’t handle being indoors full-time. We put a Tractive GPS tracker on his collar. It gives peace of mind and if anything happens, at least we’ll know when to find him. He’s living his best cat life.
Never seen any cat that chose to stay inside even 50% of the time when given a choice. I’d rather they enjoy their life than make me feel better be cause they’re penned up all the time.
Far better to die young under a car tire, bleeding out slowly and painfully alone on the asphalt. Totally agree, way better than living your entire lifespan.
… in a gilded prison, never really have lived a single day in their entire lives.
Yeah, I’d take my chances with the tire.
If your house is a gilded prison to your pets, youre a shit pet owner and you shouldnt own any animal of any kind.
Like sorry bud, you can give a small mammal a fulfilling life inside your house pretty fuckin easy. Harness training a cat is so straight forward, too, so its not even a life permanently indoors.
I get youre probably so fuckin lazy that you would prefer your pet gets its guts ripped out and dies slow in the worst pain of its life. But any normal adult capable of washing their ass can do better than you, so maybe you leave the big boy responsibilities to better people.
we have an indoor cat. I was worried about it so started taking it outside. It would sprint back inside.
So then I took it out and closed the door. It clawed at the door.
I picked her up and moved her off the deck. She bolted under the deck and I had to take up one of the boards to get her out and she ran back inside faster than ever.
I really understand that fear, and I do experience that with my outdoor cats. However cats tend to stick to their established territory and patterns and at least for mine, never go far and barely ever out of sight. In the summer being outdoor cats pretty much just means they sleep all day curled up in the garden.
Yeah, I can’t do it. We have fox around, and plenty of community cats (one evening, I walked down the ravine looking for our dog after he ran off, and I shined my flashlight upward to see about 6 pairs of eyes staring at me). We had a cat get some sort of blood borne disease, we think she got it from a tick that was in the house when we moved in (it’s our only theory, we have no idea what actually happened), and she spent a few days in the animal hospital, and barely survived. (It also cost several thousand dollars.) Unfortunately she passed away from multiple medical issues a few years later. :(
(We adopted another cat after she passed - we’ve never had more than 3 at once.)
Sorry to hear about your cat! I’m assuming you’re in the states, and I’d agree that I don’t think I’d let a cat outside there. One extra bit of support in the UK is that it’s pretty unheard of to not routinely vaccinate your cats to protect against random diseases, but of course it can’t cover everything.
Outdoor cats in the UK are driving your native wildcats extinct. Even if we ignore that the cat population is bringing foxes and badgers into human settlements because they make easy free meals.
You arent immune to having invasive species. In fact the british are pretty directly responsible for a lot of invasive species problems globally, so I would think yall would grasp the concept by now.
Wildcat extinction is an extremely specific issue. Wildcats only exist in Scotland now, driven to near extinction mostly by humans, not mating with other cats. This happened literally hundreds of years ago and has practically nothing to do with house cats. Now interbreeding is an issue for the preservation of the small number of wildcats left in Scotland. It’s sad but hardly a concern for keeping cats in most areas of the UK.
Secondly, I do ignore that cats are ‘bringing in foxes and badgers’. Can you present a source on this? I couldn’t find anything.
Sure, hand wave an extinction because its inconvenient.
Do you actually need me to google uk cat death counts for you? Or do you think predators entering human settlements is normal?
Did you guys not recently have a “serial cat murderer” who was just a fox leaving its kills in public places? Do you think thats a normal thing?
How am I hand waving it? I’m stating an obvious truth. What impact on wildcats do you expect to come from cats in Cornwall, Ipswich, or Manchester?
I think you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Yes, I would like you to google cat death counts and show me any evidence for what you’re saying. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find that cats sometimes get killed by other animals, but to suggest that it’s a significant cause of death or that they’re the reason that foxes are coming to ‘human settlements’ is complete nonsense. You make it sound like packs of badgers roam the streets of London at night.
Foxes in cities are very normal. They’re basically the UK’s raccoon. They scavenge things, including the bodies of cats hit by cars.
I am. We always vaccinate our cats as well, and since that incident we give them regular flea and tick preventatives (well, two of them for the flea and tick - the third one is way too skittish to let us do that). In our case, there’s always a risk the dog brings something in, too, so it’s good to do.
the most i’ve ever done is let my first cat go on the deck on a leash and even then i panicked the whole time. one time she got out of the slider at night and i couldn’t handle it thankfully she came back like an hour or so later
Working in the office vs working from home.
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You see all the scattered feathers in the second lane?
We should keep all predators inside. Birds, lions, alligators, etc.
Indoor cats still move a lot around the house, destroying stuff.
This is, I think, the most passionate controversy I’ve seen on Lemmy.
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The what
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Ah, that one.
I don’t remember seeing so many comments when i first clicked it 🤣 although tbh thats always been a hot debate topic on Reddit so it makes sense that it would have carried over
Live in Sweden and have 3 cats. Two are outdoor cats and one wanted to be an outdoor cat but he kinda realised he is fat and lazy and wants to stay home. So this felt very accurate for the cats who live with me!
Oh and in Sweden all cats are tagged and registered in case any should go missing. I could not imagine a world where I would deny my cats the right to go outside. Then again I did move to the countryside just so my cats could have a better life far away from traffic.
Cats commit genocide on the avian population. If they would learn to behave they would get outside priviliges.
Sometimes you Americans are just really weird.
Not all of us, but there is a subset who passionately hate cats and are very loud in letting you know about it.
I am not American. I am Dutch.
I assume this only applies ro domestic felines?
Being able to move on a whim, as an American, I don’t know that feel bro.
You do you, but fuck you.
My cat’s quality of life was dogshit indoors. She had bad allergic reactions all the time, would stop eating, Vet bills piled up with no explanations. I let her roam the neighborhood now, shes happy as a pig in shit. Her weight is stable, shes not breaking out in rashes all the time, and she entertains the neighbors. Cry me a river about all the mice and bunnies she kills.
YOU are directly responsible for the extinction of animals. I hope you are proud of yourself.
“Cats have contributed to the extinction of 63 species of birds, mammals, and reptiles in the wild”
YOU, as a human, are infinitely more responsible for hundreds of extinct species so stfu
You do realize Humans are the one who spread cats across the globe right? The extinctions caused by outdoor pet and stray cats wouldn’t have happened if human’s hadnt have brought them with them you absolute ham sandwich.
Cool, but my cat has nothing on me as a human. Just by living you contribute to the death of millions, by your own logic. Are you gonna feel bad about that?
No, not as long as I’m trying to be a part of the solution, instead of being proud about being a part of the problem.
Wow, today I learned people think it’s better for the cats to keep they locked in… I pity birds who have that kind of life, now I pity those cats too
Now today you can learn that outdoor cats kill wildlife for fun. You can also learn that outdoor cats have half the life expectancy as indoor cats
Imagine getting a highly evolved killer as a pet, perfectly tuned for a life of exploration, combat and death, and forcing them to live a long, soft boring life.
What’s that point of living more? You’d prefer to live more in a cage? That’s not a point at all. I can understand the wildlife reasoning, but then we should just forbid cats in those places then
I love that the outdoor cat is missing an eye. A for accuracy.
We have 3 indoor/outdoor cats because we’ve just always had indoor/outdoor cats and I never really thought about it.
Being on more cat-related Reddit and Lemmy communities, I’ve seen more and more of the arguments for keeping cats as indoor-only, and it’s been making me think more about how to care for cats we adopt.
From what I’ve seen of the discussions, a lot of them seem to center around urban areas and towns, where there’s a high population density. Some arguments also seem to be based off the assumption that the pets aren’t spayed or neutered.
We live in the middle of nowhere and all our cats are fixed as soon as possible (we’ve had kittens sometimes and they stay inside until then).
Is there different logic for this situation, or is it the same advice to always keep them indoors?
I’m genuinely asking.
Three factors to consider:-
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Are these cats native (or naturalised) to your local ecosystem? If wherever you live has had cats for a hundred years or so, the local wildlife would have adapted to them. Otherwise, cats can damage the local ecosystem.
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Do you rely on the cats to suppress vermin (rats, squirrels, small birds, etc.)? Even if your cats aren’t actively killing them, their mere ‘patrolling’ can drive these pests away. But if you keep them indoors, you lose this protection.
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Are there any local predators that are particularly good at catching cats?
If your answers are yes, yes and no, then let your cats out. If they are no, no and yes, keep them in as far as possible.
I’m not really sure how long housecats have been around in this area. I think historically there were a lot of farms here (in the 1800s) so they may have had cats, but I don’t have historical data.
We didn’t get cats to hunt down mice, but it’s pretty rare that we see them, and it’s an old farmhouse, so maybe we’re relying on their hunting implicitly? I’ve occasionally seen them catch and eat mice around the yard, and sometimes they bring one to the door to show off.
There are supposedly coyotes around, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one here, and we’ve only ever had cats just disappear a couple times, and they were already 17-19. The bigger danger seems to be other outdoor cats (not sure if they’re feral or not) that one of ours occasionally fights with, but the vet knows they go outdoors, and they’re up-to-date on all their shots.
Should be fine then.
but it’s pretty rare that we see them, and it’s an old farmhouse, so maybe we’re relying on their hunting implicitly?
The presence of your cats is probably keeping the mice away.
The bigger danger seems to be other outdoor cats
Cats have their territories and defend them aggressively. Make sure your cats are spayed, but from what I’ve seen even this doesn’t reduce aggression in females.
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Obviously there’s the safety aspect of keeping them indoors, they usually live longer. Aside from that, they’re also extremely efficient killing machines. The damage outside cats do to native animal populations is huge.
Unless you live in the native original range for cats, and your local region has zero automobiles, and you have no issue paying vet bills for random illness or parasite infections, then sure. Its probably not that big a risk to let your cat out unsupervised.
Brits are very arrogantly incorrect about their cat care. They are driving local wildcats extinct, and feeding their pets to local foxes, badgers, and car wheels.
You can still supplement outdoor time for your cat tho. Harness/leash training isnt too difficult, just go in areas you dont expect dog walkers. And you can also build catios, outdoor spaces that are fenced in.
They are driving local wildcats extinct, and feeding their pets to local foxes, badgers, and car wheels.
Still better than locking them in a cage and never letting them out
Yo I get youre a shit pet owner, but for those of us who dont need mommy to wipe, giving a pet a fulfilling life is pretty easy.
Harness training a cat is not hard to people who can be trusted to dress themselves, for example. Sorry to hear you struggle with both.
Outdoor cats are the number one killer of native species. They have contributed to the extinction of numerous species. Not to mention there are coyotes, cougars, bears, and hawks that can harm or even kill your cat. Outdoor cats also are a vector for diseases and parasites that can seriously harm them, or humans.
Pets should be kept indoors, for their safety, for the safety of the environment, and for your safety.
Cats are actually in more danger on quiet roads than busy ones. Busy roads teach them that cars will always be there and they avoid them. Quiet roads with infrequent cars they don’t expect them so they get used to crossing without looking or sunning themselves there in the summer.
That is a really good point I’ve never thought of or seen mentioned before on these type of threads.!
If you are in the US or Canada, you should know that about half the diet if coyotes is house cats
I think we have coyotes around, but I can only remember 1 or 2 cats disappearing, and I assumed it was because they were old and didn’t want to die inside.
The “catio” idea people have been bringing up seems like it’s worth a try, but we need to get our deck repaired for that I think.
There’s also people with barns who maintain a constantly churning population of cats to keep rodent population down.
I suspect the middle of nowhere might be worse given that the wilife there might not see a lot of cats normally and could have more vulnerable populations. Probably depends where you live, but if it has rare wildlife you don’t see much elsewhere your kitty is possibly bad news for them. Also depending on where you live the wildlife can be dangerous for tje cat too. Eagles and snakes are a worry.
Not all cats are killing machines but with 3, chances are at least one of them is. On the other hand, an outdoor life is probably much more fulfilling for a cat.
At a minimum, make sure they have bells around their collar so it warns the local wildlife.
Cats can learn to move without jingling the bells and they learn that fast.
You know, I actually thought about trying to make a product that would have a camera on the cats head and beep aggressively the moment it would detect a bird.
It’s obviously insane though
The bell is annoying the shit out of them, get a reflective/high-visibility collar.
Afaik, the best is to give them enough space but it should be enclosed. They pose a threat to wildlife to some extent, and some of the wildlife can harm them, besides an obvious possibility of being traumatised or lost.
There’s one theory that outdoor cats could be what allows the avian flu to become transmissible to humans which would cause a worldwide pandemic comparable to the black plague in terms of death toll. So there’s that.
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All cats should be indoor cats
Agreed. All the strays are heartbreaking, they deserve homes!
Accordingly to my cat (and apparently Sarah Andersen’s), this is a reliable way to give a stray a new home:
I’m not too eager to trust her biased sampling though.[Serious now, we should be more active on that. Also to discourage people from letting cats to “take a walk” unsupervised.]
Can confirm. Cats always choose you, but sometimes it’s more forcefully. This big boy busted through an open window, used the liter box, and proclaimed himself king.
It is not their habitat, from experience I have had many cats, and in my opinion it is better to be able to leave them free so that they can go in and out without going where it needs to be clean.
Depends on the country.
Depends on if you live on a farm or not*
It’s not like European outdoor cats don’t murder wildlife and get killed
No no, the whole world is suburban North America.
I don’t get what this comment is about. Is suburban North America especially dangerous for cats?
I don’t get what this comment is about. Is suburban North America especially dangerous for cats?
I suspect that they are meaning that suburban Americans are known for being very opinionated, judgemental, and overly concerned with what others do with their lives.
However, for your question, if on the peripheries, yes. There is danger to cats from cars but also coyotes, raccoons, and native big cats (bobcats, lynx, and cougars, as well as humans (was terrified for my cat when I lived in a place where serial cat mutilations started taking place). I grew up with outdoor cats but generally have preferred to keep them inside, unless it was not possible (people who think that it’s a case of ignoring a “whiny” cat have obviously never experienced the craftiness and terrorism employed by a feline that grew up semi-feral in the woods).
My reasoning is very similar to you Finns. I distinctly remember, as a child, finding one of my semi-feral cat friends frozen to death next to a pond in the forest during a particularly cold winter. As a child, we also lost near a dozen cats over the years to wildlife and cat haters in cars intentionally hitting them. That’s just too much.
I want my cats to live as long and happy a life as possible so, as an adult, when we adopted kittens, we kept them inside. They have windows, toys, and companionship that keeps them from feeling the need to be outdoors.
