Outdoor cats should be illegal
How bad it is depends on where you live, but yeah, for a lot of reasons most of the world probably shouldn’t have outdoor housecats. As the article you linked pointed out though, most of the damage is being done by feral cats, and well… that cat’s out of the bag, so to speak.
Feral cat populations are created and maintained by outdoor non-feral cats. Lots of people who don’t keep their cats indoors also don’t get their cats fixed either.
This doesn’t work as a general argument against having an outdoor cat, because you can just have them fixed.
Created yes. Maintained not so much. Feral cats can make more feral cats on their own just fine. In fact, outdoor housecats are really bad for feral cats, because they hunt prey, fight for territory, and contribute to overpopulation of small predators without having to deal with the constant dangers that an actual feral cat does.
then we should set out a bunch of coyotes,
to keep the feral cat population in check.
what could possibly go wrong?
Sure, we could try it in Australia first. They love that kind of thing. It always goes great for them.
“So, we set coyotes loose to catch the cats. Then what? We get a wolf to eat the coyotes? Then we get a tiger to eat the wolf!? WHAT EATS THE TIGER, DAD - TELL ME THAT!”
In Minnesota, we let five months of inhospitable winter do the dirty work for us.
Yep, I can’t believe the hypocrisy either, pretty much all major cities require that dogs be on a leash or in a yard. Cats though? Can’t have them on a leash! Are you crazy!?! 😱
Yeah, dogs tend to have larger territories than cats when allowed to free-roam, so cats have an easier time adapting a smaller space, hence why they tend to make better apartment pets. Feral cat colonies (which are caused and maintained by non-feral outdoor cats that haven’t been fixed) are also larger on average than feral dog packs when they form, amplifying their negative effects on the local ecosystem further. Free roaming cats also have a huge environmental impact, are a major threat to native wildlife, and are the most invasive species in the world. While free-roam dogs do hunt and do also have an impact on the environment, they don’t kill native animals on the same scale as cats. Cats will kill even if they’re not hungry and don’t intend to eat, and free roam cats eat more often in a day than free roam dogs do (up to ~12 times a day for cats, while dogs might eat once a day or even once every 2 to 3 days depending on food availability). Even more reason why we should keep both dogs AND cats inside.
If you want to give your cat more space to work with then leash training, catios, and cat-proof yards are great options! In my neighbourhood a lot of people tie their cats out on leads in their front yards as well. Everything we do for dogs to give them more space without letting them roam free we can do for cats as well, because even though they’re different animals, they’re both capable of being trained, supervised, or kept in some sort of enclosure.
I agree cats shouldn’t be let out roam freely like that anywhere and anytime but it’s better cats than dogs. Cats in general are smaller and less aggressive to humans. Like how many large dogs you could find in 100 dogs and how many big cats you could find in same amount of cats?
Do you know the difference between being taken for a walk and living outside? It doesn’t sound like you do
How does that not apply to dogs then?
Again, pure hypocrisy from cat owners.
Are we really getting the indoor cat brigade on lemmy too? Yes, in the US outdoor cats are a danger to local wildlife. Stop pushing this on people who this does not apply to. Outdoor cats are fine in many other parts of the world. The USA isn’t the whole world.
Suggesting or thinking that this issue only applies to cats in USA / North America is uninformed at best.
Australia has ~650 million lizards killed each year by feral and outdoor cats, ~225/cat
As of 2013, Canada has 100-350 million birds killed by cats each year
As of 2021, China estimates based on public survey’s that “1.61–4.95 billion invertebrates, 1.61–3.58 billion fishes, 1.13–3.82 billion amphibians, 1.48–4.31 billion reptiles, 2.69–5.52 billion birds, and 3.61–9.80 billion mammals” there each year"
Cats and other vermin are absolutely destroying native populations in New Zealand as all of the birds there evolved with essentially no native predators.
South Africa, Cape Town alone estimates that 300k cats kill 27.5m critters each year
This is not unique to the states. Keep your cats inside.
Not to mention like in Europe multiple species of native small cats are being pushed out and outbred by feral and outdoor cats
Keep your moggies inside for their sake people! Also for, y’know, all the birds and small mammals killed by them and the fact that your pet can pick up some goddawful diseases from being outdoors and still have a shorter life expectancy than indoor ones
Alright then, people should be allowed to let their dog be free so they can live as dogs.
Also, people aren’t allowed to adopt cats anymore and house cats need to be exterminated on the American continent and in Oceania.
You know… So cats live as cats historically did?
You are saying my 10 pound cat who avoids people while killing the voles that plague my yard should follow the same rules my 85 pound golden retriever with stranger danger anxiety does?
