this post was submitted on 21 May 2025
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Some of us live in countries that don't really have dangerous wild life and cats have been allowed outside for over 1000 years.
Humans can sustain a large density of cats that wasn't possible in the wild. If it's a pet cat, don't let it hunt. It will imbalance the ecosystem by adding too many predators who don't depend on the prey for sustenance
I always love bringing out this good ol chart.
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Fake news. Birds aren't real.
so... cats are the most effective way to combat birds?
yes :)
Bro someone send this chart to Australia, they can win EW2
But I am not talking about the US
I might bookmark this one :)
That's simply not true. There were never as many outdoor cats as there is today and cats used to have natural predators everywhere to keep environmental balance which is lost today. Keeping all of your pets indoors (or at least backyard) is the only ethically viable position.
Downvoted by people who don't like facts. There isn't a country in the world with a domestic cat population that wouldn't see a huge benefit to their native wildlife by keeping those pets inside or in a pet run. But people don't like the change or the effort of doing so, so they ignore this inconvenient fact.
Indeed, pet owners simply don't want to hear the truth which is incredibly irresponsible.
Even if you really must let your cat out there are things you can do like colorful collars with an attached bell which:
https://zenodo.org/records/15210938
I've never seen a cat owner who cares enough to even do that when we have clear evidence this works. The naturalist argument of "oh they are local animals" is such an irresponsible cop out where they can't even bother to put a collar on to diminish the damage. It's inexcusable laziness, nothing else.
We really are a bunch of dumb apes, and we are doomed as a species. Its just a matter of time.
>countries that don't really have dangerous wildlife
>cats have been allowed outside for over 1000 years
Sounds like your country does have dangerous wildlife, you just like the predator more than the prey
Sure it used to but we killed them off centuries ago
Yeah I always found the argument absurd as I live on a paved over rectangle with a few square feet of grass my cat likes to poop on while he hangs out with the local squirrels. He is far too lazy to hunt anything, he killed a mouse that was actually inside the house many many years ago but has been a pacifist since. He is 15 he literally wants to sit in the sun and do nothing.
Of course there are some cats who will hunt, and their owners should not allow that. But the blanket statements about environmental impacts, while they cool their house with AC, burn fossil fuels to heat food and go to work, order crap on Amazon...just lacks perspective.
As a cat owner who works in the animal industry, you're suffering from 'my personal experience is reality-itis'.
You can't 'not allow' your cat to hunt. The only chance you have is to keep it inside. Your old cat likely doesn't hunt outside but to think it killed a single mouse it's entire life, is delusional.
I don't understand people like you. Can you not accept that there are shades of gray, and exceptions to every rule? I'm simply arguing that not all cats MUST be kept indoors no ifs ands or buts. I concede that many cats, young ones in particular, will kill small animals. My (rescue) cat was an indoor cat for most of his 15 years and only when I moved from a major urban city apartment building to a slightly less-urban city single family house did I let him outside under controlled circumstances. I straight up know he isn't going around killing things. I didn't go out and BUY this cat, I'm not actively contributing to breeding or anything. I have an animal that deserves to enjoy his old age.
I should probably not engage with you people and just keep my truth to myself.
Your particular circumstances are why YOUR particular 15 year old cat is great hanging in his own yard. It is not an argument in general even that SOME cats ought to be outdoor because they are overwhelmingly get killed and kill out there.
Your argument is so inapplicable to almost anyone else that its like saying your former ax murderer friend is totally safe because he's taken up Buddhism and non-violence and is now mostly crippled.
Cats don't always show you what they kill. I had a roommate that kept letting my cats out. Never saw them kill anything. Then my neighbor told me about how they were little murder machines while I was out at work. Tried taking out a whole near of baby birds.
I have cameras, and I work from home. He literally does not leave a fenced-in rectangle. I know for a fact he doesn't kill anything.
It very well could be true. But I also don't really think you've been able to watch your cat every moment of his outdoor life to know he literally never goes anywhere and has never killed anything. My cats are indoor only in a tiny apartment and I frequently can't figure out where they are, even when I worked from home.
Humans are dangerous wildlife not least because of our cars. That is why indoor cats live 10-20 years and outdoor cats 2-4
It's hardly just cars. They have similar lifespans in areas that aren't so car-centric.
They get parasites. They get into fights with animals in their weight class (like racoons). They get trapped by animals outside their weight class (like wolves). Tons of issues in the wild.
My uncle has a farm with a bunch of feral cats around. I learned at a young age to never get too attached to outdoor farm cats.
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This is Michu, he used to live next door to me. He would be outside all the time, even in the freezing cold. Sometimes I’d hear him meowing at the neighbor’s back door to come back in, but nobody would answer. I’d hear the little guy calling out, and nobody would even be home. Sometimes I’d find him curled up on my deck chairs, so I started leaving blankets on them for cold nights. Eventually he started approaching me when I sat outside. We’d chill on the step and watch nature together.
But then a few months ago, he stopped coming. He stopped appearing entirely. When I talked to the neighbors, I learned that he’d contracted a UTI and had died. (Apparently it only takes a few hours for a swollen urethra to kill a male cat.)
Now, I don’t know how much his outdoors lifestyle contributed to his acquisition of a UTI (since they can occur in indoor cats as well, and search engine enshittification is making my search for hard data impossible.) However, I imagine that if Michu had been inside, his people might have noticed he wasn’t healthy.
Honestly, I'm not a vet and I’ve never had a cat, so I don’t feel qualified to tell people how to take care of theirs. This thread just reminded me of how I miss this little guy. He was around 4 years old and still had a lot of love to give. I was just lucky enough to receive some of it.
RIP, Michu ❤️
Where you live perhaps, I don't know anyone that has had an issue here. As I said, some of us live in different countries.
But sure if you live next to a typical American 16 lane backroad you might not want to let them out.