Shame on everyone in this thread that wants to have an argument about indoor v outdoor cats. 99 problems this isn’t one we need to pull out the torches for.
I’ve seen the stats on cats v birds, but I live in the country and there are feral and outdoor cats galore. I’ve literally never seen one even noticing birds except to chatter lazily at them.
But in every field there is at least one cat sitting patiently over a gopher/rodent hole waiting. Sometimes once they catch a rodent, a raven will come screaming down on them and they drop their snack and run away while the raven flies off with it.
Ravens on the other hand, love nothing more than fledgling song birds and eggs.
Indoor cats still move a lot around the house, destroying stuff.
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.
I think humans far outweigh the cats in the scale for harm done to animal populations on this earth.
Are we gonna really start policing whether or not people let their cats out over some dumb birds?
The damage done by cats is part of the human related harm. The cats did not relocate of their own volition. We put them there.
If you think any animal small enough to fit in a cats mouth is “some dumb bird,” then I gotta say Mr. Random Dumb Ape, you sound like you would lose an intelligence test to the bird
Well if some dude went around climbing trees, destroying nests and killing the native birds people would probably complain. The harm humans cause is due to their pets too, cats wouldn’t be where they are without humans. When there are too many outdoor cats in an area they breed a lot and effect bird populations which effects other parts of the ecosystem. Idk if it needs to be illegal but if it’s discouraged the numbers of cats killing off birds can be reduced. If people can teach their cats not to eat birds then maybe it would be fine.