Ok this might be a controversial opinion but please keep your cats inside, yall.
Felt the need to make this post because I saw a stray cat carrying its kill, a northern cardinal; while I get that that’s the natural way and everything needs to eat, these birds are already somewhat rare to see in my particular area (we’re more commonly visited by its less striking cousin, the pyrrhuloxia.)
House cats are, as pets, an invasive species. Just as you wouldn’t introduce a prolific rodent to an environment that doesn’t have enough predators to keep it from overpopulating and eating all the flora, you shouldn’t introduce a predator that overhunts the animals that play a crucial part in the reproduction of that flora.
It isn’t something most people realize or think about, but outdoor pet cats do immeasurable amounts of damage to native bird populations in every environment they’re let loose in. Without seed-eating birds, there’s no one to spread a plant’s only means of reproducing. Without insect-eating birds, there’s no one around to keep the pests in check, so they’re left free to destroy any and all plant matter they can land on. And without a cat’s other typical choices of prey (i.e. mice, rats, rabbits, lizards, even small snakes) they also starve out those animals’ natural predators, like hawks and eagles. A particularly desperate raptor might even feel bold enough to move on to larger prey—like your cat—if it can’t find a safer alternative food source. Granted, a hawk could pick up your cat anyway, but it’s a lot more unlikely if there’s an abundance of other prey that it knows it doesn’t risk injury attempting to hunt.
They also spread hella diseases! Your indoor-outdoor cat might not have caught and spread something, but the kittens it secretly had that you never knew about? Its grandkittens?? They definitely spread something, and your neighbor’s cats probably came home with it as a result. So not only are you making things difficult for the species the stray cat directly affects, but you’re also making things difficult for the cats themselves too!
In any case, if you don’t care about the native species your cat harms, then by all means, cut them loose and let them roam the streets. But please, at the very least, spay/neuter them. At least then, an avenue through which the problem can spread is no longer available.
