People reporting on missing cats and such. The solution is simple: keep the indoors. That is the responsible thing to do. Cats are highly destructive to native fauna, they can get injured, die, breed, pick up parasites, or catch communicable diseases that may be incurable.
What don't you do the same, stay indoor, humans too are highly destructive to fauna, they can get injured, die, breed, pick up parasites, or catch communicable diseases that may be incurable.
All animals should be free, if you can't provide freedom to your animals then you should not have any.
You are making an obtuse argument. You do realise pets are introduced species in many parts of the world, and actually end up being significant pests, right? Predatory pets like cats are especially destructive in most ecosystems, many small native species are vulnerable and end up being endangered, because they have not evolved a defence strategy against them. Places like Australia has a huge problem because of it.
Again, keep your cat indoors. Otherwise, you're part of the problem.
It's not an obtuse argument. People value different things. You listed a bunch of things you value (lifespan of cat, not killing lots of birds, etc) but other people are uncomfortable preventing their cat that wants to go outside from going outside. They're weighing their cat's own preferences over the things you value and reasonable people can disagree over questions like this.
It is an obtuse argument. Because they identify themselves in what I said earlier, got defensive about it, and then resorted to mental gymnastics in an attempt to absolve responsibility for the harm caused by their own pets.
I understand where you're coming from, as they can be highly destructive and are to be blamed for some species on Pacific Islands going extinct! The humans who brought cats to such fragile ecosystems are clearly to blame.
By and large, domestic US outdoor cats are not in fragile ecosystems, but they are the number one killer of birds. They roam outside along with other species (like squirrels and crows) that have had to adapt to the insane environment humans have developed.
I've always seen my pets as persons, with feeling and moods. Trapping them inside is cruel. Cats in nature are adapted to roam and explore.
My cat in the US regretably, has brought home a few birds, but all of the birds were species of least concern. Fortunately, there are a lot of cheap collars owners can use to help alert the bird of the cat's presence before predation occurs.
Your cat doesn't know which species are of least concern, and you certainly aren't seeing every bird or small mammal or reptile your cat kills for fun.
I recently took a course on ornithology and was stunned by how difficult a bird's life is from the migrations, predations, building collisions, and the sheer amount of work they invest in nesting and raising their young. It's easy to take them for granted until you actually understand what they go through just to exist, unlike a pampered cat who gets to kill for sport.
Cat owners who allow their cats outdoors are being cruel to birds and small animals, period. A bell on your cat's collar doesn't make much difference. There's no way to wiggle out of this moral dilemma. If you love nature and want it balanced and protected, then keep your cat indoors. Or, if you can, train your cat to kill only invasive species.
> Your cat doesn't know which species are of least concern, and you certainly aren't seeing every bird or small mammal or reptile your cat kills for fun.
Of course they don't know which is of least concern, but by and large I do see everything they kill because they bring it home and I have to clean it up. It is in their nature to bring it home.
> A bell on your cat's collar doesn't make much difference.
There's barely any species of concern in urban environments anymore, because:
* Industrial run-off
* Habitat destruction
* Roads and highways with vehicles
* Air pollution
* Light pollution
* Poisons
* Electrocution from power lines
* Buildings with glass (actual a #2 killer of birds!)
* Hunting (both legal and illegal)
Domestic cats are merely a cherry on top of the myriad of environmental mistakes humans have made in the name of progress.
They are simply acting on instinct and trying to be happy in a world of human creation.
If you truly care about birds I would urge you to:
* stop driving
* use no lights past dusk
* not use or consume any product that contributes to air pollution
* not use any power grid that uses power lines
* not use any building with glass
* not consume any poultry
You forget that cats aren't always 100% in their kill rates. They also maim many critters who die sooner or later from their injuries.
So while you pet and play with Fluffy that evening, the mother bird she maimed earlier that day can no longer make ~100 trips a day to feed its hatchings. She tries, but can only manage a dozen or so trips. They slowly starve over the next few days despite the mother's desperate attempts.
That bird survived all the other leading causes of bird mortality, but not Fluffy. And Fluffy gets a few more bonus kills when the hatchlings expire.
I'm curious what would you do if people had a new breed of small domesticated dog that is efficient at killing outdoor cats, and those people let that dog roam like a cat?
Given that your cat is out there doing his thing, this new breed of outdoor dog is also out there doing his thing. As you said, they are simply acting on instinct and trying to be happy in a world of human creation.
His owners think he's a person. It would be cruel to lock him up all day.
But one of these dogs swiftly kills your outdoor cat. And your next cat. In fact, they're becoming the leading cause of death among outdoor cats, seconded only by cars.
Would you a) demand that dog breed not be allowed to roam because it harms cats, b) keep your next cat indoors, or c) ?
1. those collars don't work. birds didn't evolve alongside cat w/ flashy collars, so it doesn't always trigger flee instinct
2. if your cat wants to go outdoors, you can leash them like any dog-owner is required to do. the whole "cats need to be in nature" argument is rooted in the assumption that you as the owner aren't involved in that nourishment. if you can't be a responsible cat owner (keeping it from roaming on it's own; keeping it stimulated) then don't get a pet. is the cat really a critical unit of your family if you skirt responsibility and are okay w/ it dying violently outside?
3. the US is very much a fragile ecosystem. source on it not being? we, like many other place, have had a huge and trending decline in biodiversity.
4. cats haven't adapted to the human environment; we've developed technology and laws that have protected cats in our human environment. i'm not sure how they've had to adapt as they can interact with humans safely.
5. you don't see everything your cat kills. you may be able to placate yourself that your cat isn't one of the "rampant killers", but that thought isn't based solely on fact.
I've only been into cat discourse for a few months but in my experience it's almost a guarantee that someone will make the "humans are the real invasive species" argument to defend letting their cat out
You're the one who decide to take an animal as a pet, knowing all the damage it can do to the environment. If you're fine with it then that's ok for you but you can't force your pet to be in prison because you don't want it to kill other species, if that's the case then you should not consider getting one in the first place.
Would you want to live in a cage your whole life? Then why do you want to do it to others?
Never heard of the Golden Rule: "Don't do to others what you wouldn't want them to do to you"?
I understand your point of view, I share it, cats are deadly to many smaller species that's why if you're against that then you shouldn't get a cat at all.
PS: Australia's problem is about the Feral cats and they are making traps in the wild to poison their skin thanks to some box trap and AI.
Oh please, cats are perfectly fine indoors if they are raised that way. There are solutions, like building a catio, indoor platforms and so forth. You can even train them for walking on a leash in a park. If there is a will there is a way. But people are lazy and pretend letting cats out is not a problem.
And if you are living in a shoebox yourself, where you regard your own home as a "prison" or a "cage", then you have no business keeping such a pet anyway.
> PS: Australia's problem is about the Feral cats and they are making traps in the wild to poison their skin thanks to some box trap and AI.
Feral AND domestic. There are laws introduced in Australia that mandates cats to be kept indoors for this reason.
Indeed I guess it depends of the size of the house.
> Feral AND domestic. There are laws introduced in Australia that mandates cats to be kept indoors for this reason.
I didn't know about the domestic one.
> cats are deadly to many smaller species that's why if you're against that then you shouldn't get a cat at all.
Many people who have cats do so by adoption of strays found in their area so not getting a cat is the same as letting a cat roam free in that area without a safe space and consistent food source.
The whole "prisoner" argument seems so dumb to me when we've already decided as a society that it's in the best interests of society to neuter/spay as many cats and dogs as possible to prevent an explosion in the stray population. Do you think we shouldn't do that because you wouldn't neuter/spay yourself?
I genuinely don't understand why you feel the same rules ought to apply to humans and non-sapient animals, especially animals introduced into an environment by humans.
What about the fact that animals introduced to an environment by humans in the name of "freedom" cause disproportionate harm to other animals? Whose freedom wins?
It's the same as cigarets, you know it's toxic to you and others but still you want it regardless.
PS: I love cats and always had one until few years back but I don't want to have one to force him to stay indoor, as long as I don't have a place for it to go out I won't get any.
Agreed as a cat person people should keep their cats indoors. It's better for the cat & better for the environment. Every outdoor childhood cat I had got hit by a car or ran away. None lived much past 5. My parents started to keep cats indoors and they lived 10..15+ years.
That said, this product looks like it can help people who lose their indoor cats, which happens. I recently helped rescue a neighbors cat who snuck out and stayed outside for 2 full months.
Weird how nobody mentions that you can actually walk your cat - it's very different from walking a dog, but completely doable.
Over time you can get rid of the leash and just walk side by side.
My cat was 10 when we moved to a ground floor apartment, so we couldn't realistically prevent him from escaping, so we started walking him. He lived over 16 years, the last two of which he would only go outside to lay in the bushes.
Do you think maybe by making sure that generations of cats never experience the outdoors, perhaps you are breeding them to not know how to deal with the outdoors whenever they do get out?
Deer, possums, raccoons, and other wildlife who live outdoors seem incapable of learning how to avoid it, so it's unclear my cat will either.
Further as mentioned in my post, my parents essentially ran your experiment already with the result being every male cat we had dying in under 5 years due to being hit by cars.
So no, I don't think it's a great idea to let your cat outdoors in most reasonably populated & dense areas of the US.
> Deer, possums, raccoons, and other wildlife who live outdoors seem incapable of learning how to avoid it, so it's unclear my cat will either.
Or, you only notice the ones which have been killed. Otherwise, deer, possum and raccoon populations should decrease pretty fast. And of feral cats of course.
> Further as mentioned in my post, my parents essentially ran your experiment already with the result being every male cat we had dying in under 5 years due to being hit by cars.
I'm sorry to hear that, but I am curious why it was only the male cats. Perhaps they are less skittish? What happened to the female cats?
> So no, I don't think it's a great idea to let your cat outdoors in most reasonably populated & dense areas of the US.
Alright, but I would hope you can at least agree that keeping cats indoors all the time is not preparing them for the outdoors, in the cases when they do slip out.
Cats are native fauna in some places. If it’s not suitable for a cat to go outdoors where you live, maybe just don’t get a cat in the first place. Same for dogs, children, horses etc.
While cats are native in some places, evolutionary mechanisms stop working when a predator has an unlimited supply of food supplied by humans. The problem of cats nowadays isn't their existence, but that the amount of cats per square meter is more than the ecosystem can support. Usually this would easily balance out by the predator dying. But with humans feeding cats, they can rampage the ecosystem until it's destroyed without checks and balances. Feeding a predator and letting it outside is never suitable.
...what places? Cats (and dogs, and horses) are domesticated animals. They aren't "native" anywhere the same way a wild species is, they were bred by humans.
What point do you think I am trying to make, exactly? Native fauna is defined as animals which historically have naturally occurred in the local area [1], and wild cats are by definition native fauna in Scotland, and across much of Europe.
You are letting your very obvious personal bias determine your interpretation of what is an objective fact.
It's a faulty comparison, though. Domestic cats are by definition not the same as any native cat. They are domesticated animals, more equivalent to dogs, cows, and chickens.
So the discussion to have here is 'do we accept having domesticated animals in environments they didn't originate from'.
It is in no way a faulty comparison. We did not domesticate cats in the same way that we did dogs, cows or chickens [1]. Wild cats found human populations useful because they attracted rodents. Humans found cats useful because dealt with rodents. A mutually beneficial relationship lasting thousands of years during which time, cats essentially domesticated themselves.
Domesticated animals are different species than native flora and fauna. The domestic cat is taxonomically and genetically not the same as a any wild cat. The same goes for dogs, cattle, etc.
By definition, domestic animals and plants have no native home except with humans. This is why we call domestic cats who escape and live in the wild "feral," not "wild," because a feral animal is specifically a domestic animal not living with humans, not a non-domestic native animal. It does not matter whether they 'domesticated themselves' or not, they are a domestic species and therefore not equatable with a wild one.
As a result, your point simply makes no sense. Domestic cats have no 'native lands' because they are not and cannot be 'native' anywhere except in human settlements.
> Can you point out the part of the article that disagrees with the assertion "cats are domestic animals"?
This is neither relevant nor the issue being discussed. It is a straw man, and you all too well know this. No one has at any point claimed that there are not domestic cats.
The entire point made was that cats are a native species in many parts of Europe, and that research shows not only that cats domesticated themselves, but that domestic and wild cats are genetically almost identical. The fact that domestic cats exist does not prevent native wild cats from also existing.
Did you actually read the article I linked to? I ask because actual evolutionary geneticists don't agree with you, and I'm likely to side with them on the genetics of the matter.
from the looks of it, you found an inkling of confirmation and rolled with it. you think you got a science backing for your ideas, but nah, wrong. remind yourself when you read all the articles claiming "near identical DNA!" that human DNA is ~1.6% different from gorilla DNA. geneticists are seeing larger differences between domestic and wild cat species.
Why is this getting downvoted? Indoor cats always have a longer lifespan than outdoors. It is the right thing to keep cats indoors but provide plenty of indoor play & stimulation to keep them active.
It’s not as “simple” as gp suggests, nor is it “the right thing”. We really don’t know what psychological and qol differences there are between the two… we’ve never been able to ask the cats. There are trade-offs, life expectancy being only one dimension of it. And in both cases (like the play you mention) there are mitigations to the downsides.
Source: I’ve had both indoor and outdoor cats, including cats that transitioned to outdoor after being raised indoor.
Lost one outdoor cat tragically in middle of his lifespan. But his equally-outdoor brother lived to 19, and all the outdoor cats hands down seemed happier on average (less lethargic, less neurotic, less obsessive, less overeating).
It's getting downvoted because this varies hugely by location. In the UK, the life expectancy is not that different, there are no large predators, so the consensus of cat owners is that cats life richer lives if let out. If you live in the US your cat could be eaten by a mountain lion or coyote.
This is pretty much the same attitude which leads to kids being wrapped in cotton wool, ferried everywhere in giant SUVs and never let outside to play. I find it a bit sad.
dude, it isn't a giant SUV divers that are advocating for indoor cats. they are the same people that hold onto the whimsy that "cats a natural and belong outdoors! :)"
I keep my cat in a locked closet, and she is coming up on 267 years, still going strong! I used to hear her playing in there, but nowadays she's much more quiet.
Whataboutism doesn't change the fact feral cats, or domestic cats going feral are significant pests in many parts of the world. My argument is about advocating responsible pet ownership of small predators that can easily stray and become an environmental problem.
Or even better provide them a large outdoor catio / enclosure. Opportunity to play and access to a stimulating environment are so valuable for cat well-being.
In a lot of ways cat's are still in the early phases of domestication and the concept of keeping them indoors only is rather new.
The lack of birds in the small town where my parents live, and dozens of semi-feral cats roam, is always rather unsettling. Meanwhile the parks in a city two orders of magnitude larger are bustling with activity, since the life expectancy of an outdoor cat here is close to zero.
Keep them indoors.