2y ago

A Rant on Outdoor Cats

Here is my controversial take: if it is true that a cat needs to be let outdoors unsupervised in order to live a happy life full of enrichment, then we should not have pet cats at all.

TW: Discussions of animal death.

Letting a cat wander outside unsupervised is cruel both to local wildlife, but also cruel to the cat.

Letting cats outside is often introducing a non-native species to an ecosystem which has not evolved to deal with cats. How is it any different to us accidentally introducing invasive rats, weasels, and other small predatory mammals into ecosystems? We invest a lot of money into ridding sensitive ecosystems of these invasive species but we turn a blind eye to cats because we selfishly benefit from them being around us, whether it's because we find them cute or because they provide a practical use for us as mousers.

I'm fed up of my neighbours cats who visit my garden. They poop in my planters where I grow vegetables that I eat, which presents a serious health risk to me. The cats predate the birds who visit my garden, which has exclusively been successful on fledglings and other young birds. So far, it has not been a species that is vulnerable and it's only common garden birds, but cats will kill indiscriminately and I have heard many horror stories of endangered birds being predated by cats owned by friends-of-friends.

A pigeon couple has been building a nest in a tree in my garden, but this morning I saw it was predated. I found a chewed open egg, and when showing a photo to my ornithologist friend she theorizes it was most likely a cat as the puncture into the egg shell will have been cleaner if it had been a predatory bird. Predation is a natural part of life, but this predation was not by a natural predator which is part of our local ecosystem and thus I am very upset...

But not only that, I believe letting a cat go outdoors unsupervised is cruel to the cat. Cats so often go missing, more often than not killed by cars. In other countries there are dangerous animals who can kill cats. This is not an issue here but I have personally had to dispose of dead cats who turn up in my garden after being run over on the road in front of my house. I don't think there is any other common pet animal where we so easily expose them to dangers we cannot protect them from.

Just to say, I do not hate cats. I do not blame the cats for pooping in my vegetable beds, or hunting on my property. They are animals only doing what their instincts dictate, and often are doing what we ourselves have taught them when we first domesticated them. Equally, to a degree I struggle to blame some cat owners as people will often argue that keeping a cat inside is cruel, and they do not desire to be cruel to their cats. The intentions are good, and education on this matter is poor.

There is an issue here which needs to be discussed, and the hypocracies we have normalized need to be challenged. For me, I feel that cats either need to be kept indoors if we can verify that this is not cruel to the cat, or we should be required to supervise our cats outdoors like we are supposed to do with dogs, or we should stop having pet cats. Having unsupervised outdoor cats is unacceptable.

Edit: Grammar and adding a TW just to be safe!

89 comments

I know not everyone will be able to, but I had an outside enclosure built for my kitty that connects to my house. He gets to sunbathe out there, stare at wild animals, hide in his special bush. He loves it. He gets to enjoy the outdoors without harming the wildlife or putting himself in danger.
- That actually sounds like an awesome idea.
- This is the way to do it.

Looking at the comments I'm so happy Beehaw has an overall good take on this subject. With progressive mindsets it seems 50/50 whether they agree with protecting cats and the environment. There is so much science that shows having cats be outdoors not only decimates local fauna but also increases mortality of the cat up to ~80% (over the years I've seen studies on that subject ranging from 67% to 85%). Keep your cat inside if you care about it, if it's bored you're not playing with it enough or don't have a good environment for it to explore and keep entertained. Pay attention to your cats.

I was walking my dog earlier this week and came across a cat that had most likely been killed by a coyote. It was incredibly upsetting to see and completely ruined my day. That cat did not need to live it's last moments in fear and fighting for its life, if only it's owners had kept it inside/supervised it when outside.
On a better note. I once saw a woman walking down the street and her cat was just following her along (no leash). It was super cute and you could definitely tell they had a fantastic bond. More cat owners should be like that lady.

It's a rant, I'll add on with one of my own.
I absolutely, really, hate that this gets spun around as "keeping a cat inside is cruel" or "my kitty is innocent" or whatever.
"Don't let your cats outside because it's dangerous for them!!". No, it's really not. The cat IS the danger. The hedgehogs, the birds, the polecats, all other small to medium mammals are terrorized by your cat. The actual medium sized predators are forced out of their territories, because they actually have to live on the food they catch, and don't just hunt for fun.
I really don't care if it's cruel to the cat if it's kept from killing hundreds of animals over the course of its life. But it's always about the "cute little uwu kitties".
And the idea of a neighborhood cat is somehow normalized. It's normal to see a cat on the street for some reason. They're "cute", and every neighborhood has at least one. Awesome.
You might think I'm irrationally angry about this. But the fact is, that cats kill billions of birds [1] in the U.S yearly. Do you know how much a billion is? It's almost unimaginable.
But it's somehow normal. And I come across as a cat hater when I mention this to people who let their cats outside.
I wish I could like cats, and I did use to. But now, they're just a symbol of death for me.
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380 (I'm aware that ~70% are caused by un-owned cats, but how many cat ladies supporting them are in your neighborhood?)

I'm not sure what to add here that hasn't already been said, so I'm just going to vent.
Cats in urban areas are vermin. In rural areas, they're pests. They're disgusting unclean animals, a vector for disease, and I hate them. I also live with an indoor cat. She's pretty polite most of the time, and we get along just fine. I would not choose to have a cat, but my partner owns a cat, and they're a package deal.
Outdoor cats should not be a thing.
There is an outdoor cat living across the street from me, and he's by far one of the friendliest cats I've ever met. As soon as he meets you, you can pick him up, touch his belly, he doesn't care. He also runs right out in front of cars and kills local birds. I've saved more than one bird from him. He's a very charming little asshole, but he shouldn't be outdoors.
In Australia, they're paying people to hunt feral cats. There is footage on YouTube. I used to think cats didn't belong cooped up in the house, but now I see that they belong exclusively cooped in the house. I hope we've reached a tipping point regarding awareness on this issue.
End rant.

Some people unfortunately don't want to deny their pets anything, even if it's for their own good. I knew a woman who fed her dog chocolate ice cream because it was "too sad" to deny the dog or give it species-appropriate treats. Or people feeding ducks bread even though they know it's a bad idea just because doing it makes them feel good.
So, even if letting a cat free roam outside is bad for the cat, the neighbours, and the environment, and the owner knows that, letting their cat loose makes them feel better so outdoors they go.
I don't believe it's cruel for cats to be indoors, people just don't play with their cats enough or provide them enough enrichment.
- With some of the cats I've interacted with, letting them outside would probably be cruel itself. One is scared of the weirdest things, like string, and complete fails at even hunting bugs in the house. Not to mention the crazy heat waves we've been having that would definitely be a problem for an indoor cat with thick fur.
  
  Lol my cat runs and hides at the sound of lawn mowers in an almost ptsd like furor.
  She'd never make it outside

Absolutely agree. Keeping cats indoor, or only letting them outside with a leash or fenced off area, is the responsible thing to do. People in general just dont nearly care about animals even a tenth as much as they often proclaim to do. They have no issue with them being killed for their own selfish reasons. If you agree you should do what my username says lol.
- Using animals for food is not inherently shameful; humans have done this for thousands of years. The difference is, humans used to respect the animals as more than just a food source and utilize as much of a killed animal as possible. The problem nowadays is the sheer excess. Corporate-owned farms are disgusting and the conditions are utterly cruel all in the name of profit and supplying demand.
- Nah, I'll go lab/vat-grown.

As a dog person, I haven't enough personal experience to know if keeping cats indoors is actually as bad for them as people might think, but I can share that a best friend of mine who has a now 10 yr old cat named Buddy has kept him in their house since he was a tiny kitten. You can put Buddy on the deck outside their kitchen, the patio in their yard, or just in front of an open window and he appears to literally care less about even thinking of leaving the spot. He is a skinny cat but pretty strong for his age, playful, seems very affectionate, and totally disinterested in being anywhere my friend and his family isn't. Maybe it's a question of socialization for the cats?
- I think it should be fine as long as the cat was always kept indoors and it gets enough attention and space to play. They should be treated differently to how many people treat their outside cats.
  My indoors cat is now 5 years old and very much like how you described Buddy. He wanders around the house, likes to play and likes people (even strangers). He gives all the signals of being very happy and calm, isn't easily scared or startled. Sometimes it seems his character is more like that of a dog than of a cat.
  Many people have cats that are outside 20+ hours a day and don't like 'socializing' with people. My parents had a few cats like that as well when I grew up and I don't see the point of having one like that. They aren't beneficial for the environment and don't offer much as a pet either.

I agree. I live in a rural area in a country where cats were seen as farm tools rather than living beings and pets until very recently, and keeping a cat indoors is believed to be “cruel” by most, but I see cats killed by cars incredibly frequently.
Also, I have two highly prey-driven dogs who are always controlled except when they’re in my walled back garden. The neighbour’s outdoor cat wandered into my garden, and it ended in a tragedy that left both me and the neighbour traumatised. The cat didn’t survive. It was in no way my fault, or even really the dogs' fault- the cat should never have been allowed to wander into the dogs' space on my property.
Then the neighbour tried to have our dogs put down, claiming that the dogs had come into her garden, killed the cat, and returned to our garden. Thankfully the dog warden who came to investigate saw that this was patent nonsense- we have a double-gated 3-metre wall with wire across the top on the neighbour’s side, it’s not possible for the dogs to escape into the next garden and quickly return.
So the neighbour built a catio for her new cat and does not let it wander. I am deeply sorry that a cat died before she came to that conclusion, but she should have controlled her animal just as I control mine.
- That is such an awful experience. I also have a dog with a pretty strong prey drive. Every once in a while a neighbor's cat will crawl along the top of our fence and he goes nuts. If he ever caught the cat, I'm sure it would be the end of it. I would feel so guilty because the cat doesn't deserve that, but what else can I do? I have a strong fence around my yard and my dog is never off leash anywhere else. We've trained him well enough that he's totally chill with our own indoor cat, but outside cats are a completely different story.
  Letting your pet roam around wouldn't be acceptable if it were a dog, why is a cat okay?
- I'm glad your dog is ok and the neighbor seemed to learn their lesson. Too bad it had to happen like that. When OP said "in other countries" dangerous animals attack cats I immediately thought of dogs as a threat to cats anywhere. We are in the US in an urban area and there are also owls, hawks, tics, poisonous snake, all which pose a potential threat to outdoor cats.
  
  Yes honestly I had forgotten of the danger that dogs on private property will pose to cats, as this is certainly an issue in my country and is probably a near universal danger to cats across the world. I've not heard of anyone who has had their dog kill a cat, or had a cat killed by a dog, but it will have certainly happened somewhere in my local neighbourhood.

I love birds. I have a couple myself but I also put considerable time and effort into making my garden a place for them to visit. I'm sure you know where this is going.
I hate that there's nothing I can do to keep cats out of the yard. I hate that people are too lazy to provide enrichment for their pet indoors and feel entitled to inflict it upon the neighborhood instead. I have had to clean up dead kittens who got hit and crawled under my car to die. I have had to clean up full dead families of birds I rarely get to see anymore who I somehow lucked into enticing them to nest nearby. I have found full nests of dead newborn rabbits with my lawn mower because they had been left scattered dead in tall grass and already teeming with maggots in the summer sun.
I don't understand why all of this has to be my problem. There is quite simply nothing good about letting cats outdoors. If they're not fixed, they create kittens who end up dead. If someone tries to control their hunting with a bell on the collar, they just adapt and go on killing. They shit and fight and die miserable deaths, and for what? Why are people so stubborn and just straight up mean when it comes to keeping your pet indoors? You can show someone the statistics and point them to resources for indoor enrichment and they get mad about it. I don't get it.
- Over the decades, my mother has fostered approximately 20 or so cats born in the neighborhood outside to strays. She will either bring them to the AWA or a no-kill shelter for adoption, find them a home personally, or adopt them into the household. To this day, all the cats my parents have owned were brought in from the wild and socialized.
  Ignorant owners are solely the cause of decades of time and money invested in that endeavor. Their house is near a major state route and there are a shit ton of drop-offs. And the worst part is, nobody else in the neighborhood gives a fuck. It has been only through the efforts of my mother that the cat population has been kept in control in the neighborhood where I grew up.
- I have 2 cats.. They live inside and seem happy to me. My sister used to let her cats out and was calling my boyfriend near daily to come deal with some small animal they had killed. One day it was a bunny. We have 3 pet bunnies, also indoors, also seemingly happy. That frickin upset him so much so that was the end of it. I told her he couldn't clean up any more dead animals for her and she would need to keep them inside or handle it herself. She has had them indoors now for over a year and it was a tough transition but they seem fine now.
  
  Yeah, I really cannot stress enough just how upsetting it is to clean up dead kittens. All the dead baby animals are upsetting but it hits different when it's a kitten.

I've heard that putting a bell and a bright, reflective collar on a cat can prevent them from hunting wildlife.
Does anyone know how true this is, or if doing so would negate some of the risks of having an outdoor cat?
- There's also this: https://www.pets4homes.co.uk/pet-advice/does-putting-a-bell-on-your-cats-collar-stop-them-from-hunting.html
  Will a collar bell warn prey in time for them to get away? ... When it comes to birds, cats are usually far less successful at catching them than they are with rodents. Exceptions to this are baby birds and fledglings that are unable to get away, for which a bell wouldn’t help.
  This reminded me of an experience I had personally. TW: Animal Death
  I had a very young Starling, it had only fledged the nest within the last day or two, soaking in a bird bath I had in my garden. A cat pounced out from behind one of my bushes and frightened it into taking flight. But it's feathers were too heavy with water and it did not have the strength to surmount the fence of my garden and crashed into it. The cat promptly pounced on it. A bell or a reflective collar would certainly not have helped in this situation.
  It also would not have helped with the anecdote from my original post regarding the pigeon eggs which were eaten by a cat this morning in my garden...
- I've done a bit of reading on this and here's some reading I've found:
  From: https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/how-can-i-reduce-or-prevent-my-cat-from-hunting-prey/
  The only effective way to completely prevent your cat from hunting prey is to keep them safely contained at home.
  Research has found that bells on collars are relatively ineffective [2] but other research has shown that some specially designed cat predation devices may reduce predation [3, 4].
  From: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/general-science/should-i-attach-bell-my-cats-collar
  A number of studies have looked at whether or not bells help prey escape from cats [1] [2], and the general consensus is yes! Bells on collars seem to reduce the amount of prey caught by about half, which could be enough to no longer pose a threat to ecosystems.
  Some owners worry that as well as alerting prey, a bell would also alert large predators to a cat’s presence. While this is possible, given most predator's acute hearing, it’s unlikely that the relatively quiet noise of a bell would make the difference between your cat getting detected or not. If you live in an area where your cat is at risk of being attacked by large animals you should probably be keeping your cat indoors anyway, or at least supervise their outdoor activities.
  TL;DR Bells and bright reflective collars at best reduce the success of cats when hunting but it certainly does not completely prevent them from being successful when hunting. However it may put them at greater risk of danger from large predators and if your cat is at risk of being attacked by large animals then it should be kept indoors or supervised.
- Thought on it is split. This article has some decent citations on for and against as well as ways to keep an indoor cat more than happy:
  https://www.toe-beans.com/blogs/pet-blog/case-for-against-bells
  My personal experience with years of pet sitting and just being familiar with many different cat personalities is that it can help, but it can also be adapted around and does nothing for the other major risks of being outdoors. They will still try to hunt wildlife. A baby bird, for example, probably won't get to observe the significance of a cat bell before meeting one in a close encounter.

Here is my controversial take: if it is true that a cat needs to be let outdoors unsupervised in order to live a happy life full of enrichment, then we should not have pet cats at all.
So, what do you propose to do with all the cats that currently exist? Abandon them to fend for themselves? That would result in them being…outdoors, exactly like what you're complaining about. Kill them all? That's cruel, too. And unlike wild animals, cats trust us as their protectors and caretakers, so killing them would also be a betrayal.
It's way too late to make the argument you're making. All that can be done at this point is to sterilize them all, which is already in progress.
- The proposal being made is to keep your pet cat(s) indoors. That's it.
  
  That's cruel, as has already been mentioned.

The problem from my point of view is people not spaying/neutering cats, and then inevitably a feral population will show up. Many cats can have a litter at 6 months old. I've personally watched generations of cats grow outside my workplace.
It's a huge problem. All the local shelters are beyond max capacity JUST FROM CATS. Feral cats explode in population, and the only real way to get populations under control is more Trap-Neuter-Return programs along with educating cat owners on why they absolutely must spay/neuter. There is no excuse not to.
https://www.alleycat.org/our-work/trap-neuter-return/

Is it normal for housecats to spend time outside? I have two. One is fully indoors, the other goes out 2-3 times per week, for maybe a half hour, and doesn't venture past our back patio. No hunting that I'm aware of, and definitely no pooping in the neighbor's garden.
- I imagine it probably depends on what is normalized in different countries, states, and possibly even on a more local level. Here, it is widely considered to be cruel to keep a cat indoors. I have 5 or 6 different cats who visit my garden. But there are many people with indoor cats too.

I'd also argue that having a cat inside all the time is equally as cruel to the cat. Having pets most of the time isn't a benefit to the animal but instead to the human. Dogs included. Overall it's cruel to animals to keep them as pets and a lot of people who intensely care for animals don't want to hear that. They want to fill their house with as many pets as possible and they don't understand that's not healthy for anyone.
- What's cruel is having a pet you never interact with or care for. Inflicting your cat on your neighborhood is just a different kind of cruelty altogether - as is dropping your domesticated animal into a dangerous environment unsupervised. It's not a zero sum game where the cat is either indoors and tortured or outdoors and fulfilled. You can provide more than adequate enrichment with a modest investment of time and money. Insisting on the misery of your cat to persist is ironically the true projection of human emotion here.
  Honest question to anyone who disagrees: many small animals are kept inside their entire lives. Is this torture? Do you look down on those who own small animals?
  
  many small animals are kept inside their entire lives. Is this torture?
  I'd say the small animal isn't as happy as it could be. That it's likely not a great life. Torture goes too far but I would say it's likely not fulfilled and that the small animal would want to go outside if it understood it from birth. domesticating animals so much that we've changed their evolution is probably a bad thing.
  Do you look down on those who own small animals?
  I don't. It's very human to own animals. I can understand why people do it and I don't look down on them because I have a different opinion than them. I just don't see that perpetuating the evolutionary path of domestication is a good thing.
- Having pets most of the time isn’t a benefit to the animal but instead to the human.
  My cats would have either gone hungry or been killed by dogs had I not adopted them. My parents' cat would be behind bars or euthanized had she not been adopted.
- If it's a rescue, it's much more humane than just killing it or letting it run free tho. My indoor cat that I found as a struggling stray on the street is plenty happy and has no wantingness to go outdoors.

Google catio, it will please you whether you're here for the birds or the cats.

I always see folks say that cats being outside is bad, that they’re a non-native invasive species.
So, I got to wondering….exactly where are cats native and non-invasive, but aren’t inside a house?” houses and dwellings for cats didn’t always exist. I don’t need to be explained to as to why cats should be inside, what I don’t understand is the missing logic about them not being outside.
- Cats might not look like much, but they are some of the most successful and prolific hunters on planet earth. And they also kill entirely to keep their skills sharp.
  So as you can imagine, combine an instinctual need to kill for sport with an insatiable desire to explore, you've got extremely efficient bird death machines that operate in mile-wide radiuses.
  Keeping cats from going outdoors just helps to limit needless disruption to a clade of animals that is already extremely sensitive to deforestation and other external factors.
  
  Put a bell on your cats, and the core of the argument kind of vanishes!
  A little bit of owner diligence sorts that problem out. Do people always do this? No. But if the argument is "Outdoor cats are bad because they hunt indiscriminately" than that argument is no longer valid and is instead "Cats that don't have bells are a danger to their environment" no?
  Edit: Bells are not a 100% effective solution as pointed out by @Jho@beehaw.org, they reduce cats hunting effectiveness in ~1/2. I was being too sassy, and got carried away.
- In the end, it's a numbers game. Wild populations of cats around the world don't hold a candle to the amount of domestic cats. That's what ends up making it so damaging to wildlife. There's no shortage of people enabling cat populations either. It's inevitable when the animals in question are so cherished by humanity. Feral pigs would be another case of domesticated animals ruining habitats and killing wildlife. They are routinely destroyed, and for good reason. With cats, you're far more likely to see someone feeding a feral population than gunning them down the way hogs are. It's just the reality of our attachment.
  
  You can't get rid of cat populations by killing or relocating them anyways...
  They will move back in from neighboring areas.
  You do catch, spay, neuter and release. This is a fundamental tactic to controlling feral cat populations.

.... Put a bell on your cat. Problem solved.
We have 1 indoor/outdoor cat. She LOVES to go outside, if she's stuck inside she gets matted fur, gains weight, and is generally angry/sassy. If she gets to go out, she's a happy kitty. And she can't hunt outside animals because of her bell.
This post appears to be based on a general lack of knowledge or understand of feline behavior and needs. You appear to be thinking cats are dogs, which they are not...
"It's cruel to the cats". No, no isn't, you're projecting onto cats. Sure, some people leave their cats out to starve and fend for themselves in an urban environment, that can be cruel. But a cat being outside is not cruel, and it's rather asinine to say so.
- It's pretty cruel to put your cat in a prime position to get hit by a car though
  
  Or to come into contact with coyotes and raccoons.
  It's also just ultimately selfish to not put the work in to provide indoor enrichment. Of course it's not an easy adjustment when the cat is used to being outdoors, but it's doable. Just requires some effort on the part of the owner.
  
  By the same note, it's cruel to let your kid play outside for the same logic no? Or for you to let your spouse drive anywhere? How could you let them use the sidewalk when you know there is a chance they could be hit by a car? You are putting them at risk, shame on you for being a bad parent, and a bad spouse to put them at risk. (See how circular that logic is now? It can be applied to everyone and everything)
  Quality of life depends on a certain level of risk in every case.
  I don't want my cat ran over, that's why the other 5 are indoor only. The 6th is indoor/outdoor because she is happier that way, and was a rescue who would otherwise be dead.
  I put value in my animals quality of life, and I'm not so selfish as to detract from it because I'm scared for them. If that quality of life depends on them wandering about the back yard, then I do what I can to facilitate it so they are happy.
  She has a bell breakaway collar so she can't hunt, she has a chip so she can be identified, water and food is put out and removed daily, a stand is out on our porch so she hangs out there....etc implying that cat owners are negligent just because they don't meet your one specific criteria is almost toxic.
  The armchair argument you are presenting is black and white, AND circular, which means it's ignoring the nuances and is peeping in through a slit just big enough to be critical of others but not big enough for there to be actual understanding. Almost a fallacy really 🤔
  Edit: Maybe I should leave this thread. After I got my first cat I was fascinated by their behavior, and started learning about their characteristics and the science behind them, and eventually started rescuing cats (Which is how I ended up with 6...).
  So I'm emotionally attached to the topic, and find the quality of the stances in this thread to be both dissipointing and frustrating. Especially when those stances are both cherry-picked and accusatory, and expect the cat owners to defend themselves instead of discussing the nuanced topic. And when replies only pick one small piece to argue against, instead of the topic as a whole.

I live in a city so the only local wildlife is rats and pigeons. I dont have a cat and i wouldn't worry if my cat killed either.
- Because that the cats already killed the other wildlife?

Does your opinion change regarding outdoor cats in a rural situation, like a farm?
- Yes, I think so. But I'm not entirely sure of my opinion on this.
  I'm sure there are many people out there who rely on their outdoor cats for survival to prevent their food harvests from being plundered by rodents, either because it's their entire income or because it's food they consume themselves.
  I am in a position of privilege and do not have to worry about procuring food and my income which I use to survive is not affected by such issues. It certainly feels wrong for me to say that in these situations people should not have outdoor cats when it is not an area I understand very well nor are these problems I face myself.
  But of course, cats kill indiscriminately and will not be able to distinguish between a common rodent and an endangered bird. My hope is that there could be an alternative solution which is less destructive to local ecosystems which anyone regardless of wealth could deploy. But I certainly don't know of such a solution.
  
  As a person who lives in a farming area- the farmers keep cats, but they are not pets- they're generally almost completely feral, allowed to breed uncontrolled, sometimes are not fed by humans, and when they inevitably wander into the road and are killed by cars, they are thought of as expendable- there are always more to replace them. I agree that there is probably no better rodent control, and rodent control is very necessary, but there has to be a better way to do it than using free-roaming feral farm cats.

89 comments