My grandmother has five cats, all of them outdoor cats. The difference is, they’re outdoor-only cats–they sleep under the porch outside. They’re still very much wild cats though.
When most people talk about outdoor cats, they mean something different: a cat with a place to sleep inside that is also allowed outside to roam.
I have experience with one of those, too. Absolutely adorable little girl got into my laundry room, and then into my apartment. She had no collar, so I had no idea who to call as I tried, desperately to figure out what to do. I was desperate. My landlord had said he would literally throw the cat into the street if she was there when he got home. Animal Control was no help, refusing to pick her up. In the end, I had to let her outside, and hope for the best.
Why Your Indoor Cats Shouldn’t Be Outdoor Cats
Needless to say, I was very peeved when I saw that cat a few days later, sitting smugly on someone’s windowsill.
“If you had a place to go, why did you have to make my very early Wednesday morning so stressful?”
It turns out that, really, it’s better, scientifically, if the cats of the world listen to me and stay indoors.
A research group, Cat Tracker, spent 6 years looking at the activities of over 900 cats. The participants came from over 4 countries. The findings were interesting. (1)
Why It’s Bad For The World
Troi Perkins was one of the study authors, collecting data for the United States, while she was an undergrad at North Carolina State University. She says that your kitty, however sweet, is doing damage. “Urban areas have wildlife that are already affected by human development and landscape fragmentation. The more pet cats outside,” she says, “the more stress and fatalities local wildlife species can encounter. The ecological impact of housecats roaming outside can be even more dire when there are threatened or endangered wildlife living nearby.”
Additionally, “owners estimated that their cats brought home 42 prey items per year, while estimates show that cats kill one to three times as many prey than they bring home. This suggests that each cat was killing around 50 to 138 animals per year, according to estimates,” says Gizmodo. “Wild carnivores spread those kills out over a range 10 to 1,250 times larger than the pet cats. This means that wild carnivores kill fewer animals per concentrated region, compared to cats.” (1, 2)
Why It’s Bad For Your Cat
“A lot of people, when they received the data on their cats, were more concerned about them crossing roads than their effect on wildlife,” says Heidy Kikillus, who was part of the New Zealand data collection. Apparently, that’s a very real fear. The cats crossed the road four-and-a-half times a day. In fact, when Kikilus followed up with study participants afterward, a lot of the cats had been run over by cars. (1)
If you’re worried your cat will resent you for keeping it indoors, don’t. “Without the motivations of food and sex,” says study lead Roland Keys, “most cats seem content to be homebodies.” (1)
