plenty of people around here seem to think that and then there are multiple posts about their cats being eaten by coyotes afterwards… owls are pretty bad too.
Finally, owl praxis
We do what we must because we can
it’s actually a car writing this
after killing pedestrians on a crosswalk, it can have a cat, as a treat.
Besides having less than half the average lifespan of indoor cats, I don’t think people realize just how damaging and invasive outdoor cats are for the environment
One they’re insanely efficient hunters responsible for hundreds of species of birds/ smaller animals’ extinctions & endangerments; which means native predators have less food and a harder time surviving as well. Ecosystems have a delicate balance and cats due to a lottt of damage
Two their processed diet & unnatural lifestyle around humans makes their poop full of countless harmful pathogens not native to the ecosystem; cat (and dog) poop are classified as literal biohazard pollutants by the EPA, in the same category as crude oil spills. Even by burying their poop, they contaminate the whole soil around it, eventually spreading foreign bacteria/parasites to plants -> insects -> lizards -> birds -> foxes, etc. Not to mention their poop’s nitrogen & contaminants eventually seep into groundwater -> freshwater -> the ocean -> marine life
Letting your cat roam outdoors is arguably a shittier thing to do to our planet than littering on a regular basis, sorry not sorry
What I really dislike is how people treat cats like a super low-maintenance thing. But they aren’t, they’re animals and one should take care of them including keeping them stimulated with playtime and even walks with a leash.
It’s also bad how a lot of free-roaming cats tend to produce more kittens and having a stray cats that won’t find a home. Not to mention like you said, bad for other smaller animals around.
I cannot imagine a world in which my cat would go on a walk with a leash. Every time I’ve tried to put a collar or harness on her to let her see the backyard she’s just like, “Mother, why have you punished me so? Please, I beg of thee, remove this fetter and let me free into the house. I do not wish to enter this forsaken land!”
She actively does not want to go outside, but she very much wants to see inside every other apartment in the building.
getting cats used to harnesses and leashes is probably like getting them used to blowing a raspberry on their stomach. you gotta start when they’re a kitten, and you gotta be careful.
I started trying when she was a kitten, but maybe I didn’t start early enough because she was a returned rescue
Someone else adopted her for a few months but had to return her because their landlord decided to change his mind about allowing cats. She’s so sweet and affectionate, I can’t imagine anyone disliking her. Fuck that landlord.
i wonder how much that changes when you’re in an area that’s a native area of small wild cats and has been overrun by agriculture and domestic cats for 5000+ years. the cats have probably killed everything they could already. still, the concentration of cats that can live on garbage and well meaning stray cat feeders is probably too much even for those environments, degraded as they are already by increasing human encroachment
The pollution from their poop is environmentally destructive enough alone tbh. Same reason wolf poop is neutral to the environment but dog pop is a major biohazard, they harbor all sorts of foreign pathogens from cohabitation with humans and unnatural/processed food loaded in nutrients causing excess of nitrogen + changing how their guts evolved
Also 5000 years isnt nearly enough time for an ecosystem adapt to a non-native species,
Mine learnt to stay close to home. I take them for walks sometimes were they can run in the open fields. But they are free to go and come as they please. Yea statistically they won’t live as long but they have a better life I think
You should stop leaving them unsupervised, you’re enabling them be the worst most harmful version of themselves to countless other animals.
Their happiness is your responsibility, you can’t just shirk that by allowing them to kill other animals.
I want them to kill mice. it’s needed around the country side.
