this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2024
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Maybe don't let them outside then? Outdoor cats are absolutely horrid for native ecosystems. The amount of destruction they can cause is insane.
I love cats, grew up with them, but this is a big reason I don't want to get one for myself as an adult. Also I'd feel bad keeping my cat indoors all the time.
You can keep them safe and happy inside though. Also, you can train them to walk on a leash -- it isn't easy, but perfectly doable. My cat enjoys her brief supervised forays into the back yard or basking on the balcony in the sun.
Many cats are perfectly suited to be indoor cats, it really does depend.
Anecdotal: I have a feral rescue who they told me couldn't be rehabilitated into an indoor cat, but after a month of being exclusively indoors (unintentionally, I had to move out of my house for mold treatment), his anxiety was almost completely gone and he started being friendly and affectionate to everyone who gave him attention.
I think most people are missing how much a cat can get out of being in its natural environment, it should be intuitively obvious how important it is to them if you've lived with cats that do and don't have access to that and see how much they value being able to do cat things outside and basically have their own lives independent from their owners.
I agree. I had a cat in the countryside, then we took him to a 2 bedroom apartment. He was miserable and always tried to escape. When he did, sometimes he wouldn't come back for a day or two. Then when we moved back into a house where he could come and go, he went back to being happy.
Would you mind giving me the source you used? Based on the articles I've found so far it seems that no one is really sure about the impact of cats on wildlife in urban areas. Unless it's an island.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
I'm not trying to argue letting cats outside is a good idea, but "insane" is an overstatement. Where I am there are a lot of cats in the rural areas and nobody almsot keeps them inside, yet everything is fine.
A big thing they didn't mention is at all is lifespan.
"The average life span for an outdoor cat is only two to five years of age while an indoor cat’s life span can reach seventeen years of age or older."
Source
So even if you ignore the ecosystem thing, I personally think that my cat living an extra 10 years on average is worth it.
Yes, that's very important! And it's why you should keep your cats inside if you really love them
Unless you live in an area that has native small wild cats, then feral or pet house cats are an invasive species that destroy small mammal and bird populations. And if you live in an area where small wild cats are native, then it’s probably best to not let house cats compete with them and reduce the wild population. There’s really no ecological argument to allow house cats to roam in any environment.