1w ago

Free roaming cats should be illegal

Just had to chase the neighbors cat away from a juvenile kookaburra that was on the ground in our yard. The cat has been on the other side of the fence waiting for its chance to finish the job.

We put the bird in a cardboard box to take to the local vet tomorrow.

Can anyone give me any good reason why cats are still allowed to roam free without consequence in this country?

Update: We were woken by cat noises again this morning. After a safe and quiet night in a box the fledgling kookaburra was released where it was found and after several attempts it managed to fly up onto a roof where it will at least be safe from ground based predators today. Multiple adults birds in the area this morning and some amazing bird calls.

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33 comments

Some people are stupid and immature and believe their cat will suffer immense psychological torture if kept inside
They don’t care about the environment because they are entitled and thoughtless and genuinely believe you’re just a cat hating alarmist
- As someone without a cat in the fight, don't cats suffer if they're kept indoors? I mean, I know that I do
  
  They’re totally fine indoors and are even healthier
  People just don’t want to do the work of entertaining and playing with their cat so they let them outside
  https://www.catster.com/cat-health-care/is-it-cruel-to-keep-cat-indoors/
  
  I guess they're the same as us then in that respect; our biology is primed for the outdoors, but we live longer indoors and any resulting depression or drop in happiness from this nature/nurture divide is very livable.
  Fair enough. I can say that I'd probably let my cat out if I had one, but who knows, maybe I wouldn't
  
  Some people are responsible and take their cat on walks with a leash
  Or make an enclosed area for them
  Most are just entitled dipshits that don’t care if their cat kills every living creature it can find, which they do
  
  Walk on a leash might be something I'd try, though only on the streets. I live close to and volunteer at a nearby nature reserve, and I'm sure my colleagues would be livid if they knew I was taking a cat near a place with wading ducks.
  That being said, we have a metric ton of foxes here and weirdly enough, the only thing they're afraid of seem to be cats.
  
  So, you might find this interesting.
  Theres rewilding of Tasmanian Devils on the Mainland beginning by Aussie Ark its primarily for insurance against a severe cancerous disease that decimated the Tasmanian population.
  I can't find a reference, but its also thought that Tasmanian Devils reintroduction in the mainland may reduce fox and cat numbers in the wild in Australia by putting downward pressure on those species' population numbers. Which could be a great win for conservation, since these two species alone are responsible for so many native animal deaths.
  
  Gosh they're cute little devils. What a crazy (transmittable through bite??) cancer they have, and how sad that farmers would decimate them based on nothing more than conjecture.
  I hope their numbers thrive, and I hope the ecosystem on the whole retains some balance for the smaller creatures to thrive a little
  
  Why do you keep referencing indoor cats and poorer quality of life or depression as if it's a foregone conclusion? It's not, and indoor cats live longer, are exposed to less diseases and viruses, and keep bird populations from being pointlessly decimated. If you have sources for your prejudiced opinions, post them. Because you're starting to sound like propaganda...
  
  I didn't realise it was a fierce debate, I thought we were all (quite amicably) trading anecdotes.
  Alright so there's this 2021 paper cited > 100 times that cites a few studies in the intro, claiming that many cats just don't get the proper indoor stimulation even when the owners are trying:
  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7909512/
  Whilst owners may instead aim to meet their cat’s behavioural needs indoors, studies suggest many cat owners may not provide adequate levels of enrichment to ensure high welfare for their cat [31,32,33]. Insufficient levels of enrichment and the inability to avoid stressful human–social environments indoors [34,35] may contribute towards the comparatively higher levels of undesirable and sickness behaviours observed in indoor-only cats, compared to indoor-outdoor cats [5,8,36,37,38].
  (I don't list the studies themselves, but their number are at least somewhat indicative of prevailing evidence)
  
  My previous cat was absolutely terrified of the outdoors. She liked looking out of windows, but I walked her 5 feet out the front door once, holding her the entire time. Afterwards, she'd watch that door on alert while sitting with me on the couch rather than nap like she used to. Did that for a month or two at least, maybe longer.
  Anecdotal, but sometimes cats and outdoors don't mix. It's never a necessity.
  The rescue I use makes you sign a contract saying that the cats you adopt will be strictly indoor cats. It's better for them, too, not just for the environment.
  
  My old roommate had two indoor cats, and they lived their entire lives inside of that tiny apartment. One day when walking home, I saw one of the cats just chilling outside looking at me with a confidence I'd never seen before.
  Thinking he'd escaped the house, I tried to grab him and take him back up, but he kept scampering away. After giving up, I went home and up into the apartment, and both cats were indoors. One of them just had an outdoorsy twin.
  We'd have to keep careful whenever we opened the apartment door, because the cats would sometimes sprint out of the place and down the stairs out of curiosity.
  One of the cats died recently, and I do sometimes lament the outdoor life he never and that his doppelganger was currently living. I don't think they were unhappy - they were fed, loved, entertained - I just feel that they were imprisoned a little somehow in that space
  
  In my experience, they do best having the option to go in and out. My cats that were allowed to wander didn't exhibit the weird behaviors of indoor cats that we associate with them and joke about. They simply came in and chilled.
  This notion that they're all bloodthirsty killers doesn't match my experience. Ozzy was my only cat that killed, or could hunt to begin with. Their instincts seem dulled, and without a mother to teach them, they're not the skilled killers of the past.
  Besides, they're hardly desperate if they're fixed and have a steady source of food. Feral cats are a whole other story!
  
  No, they don't. They only suffer if you're a shit owner who has failed to care for their needs
- My former outside cats didn't exhibit any of the stereotypical behaviors we all joke about. Of the 6 cats I've had in the past, only one was a killer, but he kept to rodents. No idea how that worked out. 🤷🏻‍♂️
  There are several outdoor cats around here, and I'm in the yard all the time. Never seen evidence of them killing anything. Only dead animal I've found was a male hummingbird, and as thick as the males were that year, I suspect it was from a hummingbird fight. One third of an acre, on the edge of town, plenty of cats, 1 corpse. YMMV.
  Not saying cats aren't killers! But I'm guessing much of the instinct had faded over time. Again, I've only known one killer, among my cats and all the others I've known.

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