Outside Cats - is it a sin?

I always thought that the problem was driven overwhelmingly by *feral* cats, not house cats.

90% of the time my boys are doing this
https://imgur.com/a/v03UgQE

Re: birds and cats. My experience has been if the bird finds my cat, they chase it and swoop it til kingdom come. And I feel bad for my cats and curse all flying creatures for their cruelty towards some of my closest friends. But then I will catch a moment where one of my cats finds a solitary bird that HASN’T noticed it. And it gets low to the ground and starts slowly slinking towards it ready to pounce. Typically they fail and the bird calls all its mates and they terrorise my cats again. The vicious circle. The birds in my area are pests that attack small children (seriously) so I don’t feel much sympathy for them when my cat is on the hunt. Between the three of them and their two years of life, they have caught two birds. I’m not crying myself to sleep about it

https://imgur.com/a/v03UgQE

xp not overwhelmingly no - nearly 1/3 is attributed to domestic indoor/outdoor cats, not including barn cats:

We estimate that cats in the contiguous United States annually kill between 1.3 and 4.0 billion birds (median 2.4 billion) (Fig. 1a), with 69% of this mortality caused by un-owned cats.

We defined owned cats to include owned cats in both rural and urban areas that spend at least some time indoors and are also granted outdoor access. We defined un-owned cats to include all un-owned cats that spend all of their time outdoors. The un-owned cat group includes semi-feral cats that are sometimes considered pets (for example, farm/barn cats and strays that are fed by humans but not granted access to habitations), cats in subsidized (including TNR) colonies, and cats that are completely feral (that is, completely independent and rarely interacting with humans). We did not classify cats by landscape type or whether they receive food from humans because the amount of time cats spend outdoors is a major determinant of predation rates and because predation is independent of whether cats are fed by humans

I've been on both sides of this and basically agree with H.P.: I feel like the domesticated cat was designed to live with humans while still having access to the great outdoors.

I grew up in a ruralish area with an indoor/outdoor cat, and then lived for many years as an adult with indoor-only cats. Now we have an indoor-outdoor cat — my wife already had him when we met, and he was already set in his ways. I didn't object, and honestly living again with an indoor-outdoor cat after living with indoor-only cats, you will have a hard time persuading me that indoor-only cats are just as happy. I'm not saying they can't be happy, but I really do not think they are as happy as cats allowed to go outside. My anecdotal experience of my own and my friends' indoor-only cats is that they are more neurotic and more prone to various kinds of weird behaviors because they have to find some way to get out all that cat energy.

But I do feel bad about the toll our guy takes on birds, I find at least a few dead birds in the yard a year (or he brings them inside), and I'm sure there are more that I don't see. (I don't mind him wreaking havoc on the local baby rabbit population, because our neighborhood is overrun with bunnies.) I don't know. It's a little hard for me to imagine having an indoor-only cat again, but it could happen in the right circumstances. I don't judge anyone else's choices or priorities, I don't think it's an open-shut case either way.

I don't own any cats, but I've housesat for them for years.

most of the owners lived in houses and were ok with them going outside in the enclosed backyard area.

I still never like this as sometimes they liked to go there and hide from me or not want to come back in, or they could get under the fence if not careful.

the worst though, was when my live-in landlord's cat, when I let him out one night as the landlord indicated I should. this cat was a frail, old beat-up cat, 17 years old, badly fucked up spine, all kinds of ailments, very slow and weak. so ten minutes pass and he shows up at the door and his face looks weird, and I'm like what's up with your face.

then I looked closer and realized it had a dead cat in its mouth that it had just mercilessly slaughtered in the backyard.

I have a bad thing with rats. I wouldn't let him in until he released the rat (onto the carpet). it was only the next morning when I had the fortitude to pick up the dead rat and dispose of him. almost threw up after. cat outright gutted the fucker.

Once watched my parents cat devour an entire rat: head, body, feet, bones. Absolutely nothing left of it. Ngl after the initial shock it was absolutely fascinating. I watched the whole thing. Worried what this says about me.

brb....puking

Our cat does this sort of amazing surgical thing with mice. He peels them apart very delicately and eats the bits he likes — including the brains — and then leaves these vivisected corpses with neat piles of tiny organs next to them. Real Hannibal Lecter stuff.

once I was talking to my brother in the kitchen and suddenly he started violently gagging and I said you alright there? + his quite amusing reply was "I think I've just stood on the remains of a mouse" (in his socks)

remarkable collection of nightmarish posts in this thread today.

Shame on the rat sympathisers. Keep posting the gory details people

Tbh, I wish my cats ate rats whole. Don’t fancy finding decomposing rat body’s in our garden or decapitated heads on our bedroom floor

my cats have never encountered a rat so the closest i've come to witnessing their inner nature is the occasional decapitated roach

then I looked closer and realized it had a dead cat in its mouth that it had just mercilessly slaughtered in the backyard.

Gotta say I did not immediately clock that this was a typo and was like 😯

OMG

we were given a cat by my older sister when she came home from the Ram Dass ashram in college, she was named Girlie Girlie, they told us she only ate brewer's yeast

she was an amazing cat. she growled at us to stay away when we finally fed her meat

I suspect windows take out many more birds than cats.

Once watched my parents cat devour an entire rat: head, body, feet, bones.

I think I read once that one reason cats are so good at reducing rodent-born illnesses is that they don't eat the absolute entire thing and leave behind the (literally) shitty bits, whereas a dog will happily go around hoovering up rat poop all the time and therefore potentially spread rat-borne disease. Hell, my friend's dog obsessively sniffs around the backyard eating rabbit poop. And every dog owner knows that cat poop is a favorite dog treat. (I love dogs, but they're gross; there's a reason there are not many stinky cats).

The most horrific historic cat story I read was re: the siege of Leningrad. As the city starved they systematically ate all the pets (and eventually the odd person or two). As the people died the bodies literally piled up, since there was no place to bury them (the ground was frozen), and as the bodies piled up the rats moved in, feasting on the corpses and spreading disease. When the blockade was breached they had to bring in hundreds of cats from Siberia by train to take care of the rats. Apparently there are statues in their honor:

https://st4.depositphotos.com/1670286/21923/i/1600/depositphotos_219233568-stock-photo-russia-tyumen-july-2018-sculpture.jpg

Yeah, my parents cat did leave this little red part of the rat, looked like a stomach or spleen or something idk rat anatomy. I figured it was the nasty party of the rat. Was impressed he could eat around the whole thing except for this one little circle of red goo

Every city should have golden cat statues imo, haven’t they given us enough?

Every city should have golden cat statues imo, haven’t they given us enough?

I've been exposed to every side of this, and Have Thoughts.

When I was a child we had a few indoor/outdoor cats. Nowadays I keep cats inside. In my mind it's less about the cat's own safety than about the safety of local wildlife, and for my own peace of mind.

Also our current cat is not a candidate for hybrid life - he got out once by accident and it was traumatic for all concerned, so he's an inside cat for good or for ill.

In my youth I worked for an animal protection organization, and as a result I studied every angle and wrote on this topic frequently.

I also did some volunteer work with feral cats - fostering, taming, helping with trap/neuter/release programs. There is a lesser-of-evils logic to TNR. These cats will never be pets. They deserve to live, but it's best for them to be fixed. Kittens born feral can be successfully tamed. Some other alley cats can transition to barn life in rural settings.

Outdoor cats eating birds is a nontrivial issue. Waving it away as "nature gonna nature" oversimplifies. There are various views out there, but I am frankly too tired to debate the ethics.

So I will just send good wishes to all the people and beasts out there, hope you all have a good napping place and a regular source of food.

Outdoor cats eating birds is a nontrivial issue. Waving it away as "nature gonna nature" oversimplifies.

If it were not for the close relationship between domestic cats and people, the number of descendants of the original feline species who later became domesticated cats would be extremely small and they would all live in a very small area in north africa. we are directly responsible for the vast population of cats on earth. the millions of small birds they kill every year is a direct result of our actions or inactions.

But isn't that also saying that cats made a strategic alliance? Cats absolutely benefit from the cat-human relationship, they hitched themselves to a good ride. And they've been work animals for most of that time, they still are a lot of places. Plus of course they're fascinating weird lovable roommates. I'm not going to argue against the human-cat relationship. But I agree that its worst effects should be mitigated.

kinda hoping some intrepid ILXOR will turn this thread title into a song

If it were not for the close relationship between domestic cats and people, the number of descendants of the original feline species who later became domesticated cats would be extremely small and they would all live in a very small area in north africa. we are directly responsible for the vast population of cats on earth. the millions of small birds they kill every year is a direct result of our actions or inactions.

Aimless OTM. There was a sentiment expressed upthread like if a bird (who can fly) can't get away from a cat (who can't fly), then maybe that bird wasn't meant to live. That's the oversimplification I was referring to. Like, okay, but if humans have their thumb on the evolutionary scale then it's not really a fair Darwininian shakeout.

It's morally fraught, but I strongly doubt anyone whose mind is already made up is going to change their mind because of what we type here.

cos everytime I tried to tell you
the words just came out wrong
I hope an ilxor says outside cats are a sin
in a song

I'm not a cat owner and probably never will be, but the happiest, friendliest cat I've known was an indoor-outdoor cat. His name was Diabolo and he belonged to my housemates at the little house I lived at in slightly-rural Normandy. The first time I saw the place it was at dusk and there was mist over the fields, and then this white cat came walking out of the mist, and I thought, "yes, I want to live here." There were cows in the field, and sometimes he would slip under the fence and go hang out with the cows, who seemed to tolerate it just fine. But he loved people and when you got home he would come running to meet you just like a dog and jump up to your hand to be petted. Of course as an indoor-outdoor cat he didn't live long; he was hit by a car a couple of years after that. I have no idea how the ethics and wisdom of keeping him inside vs. outside adds up, but I'm glad I got to know him; he was a great cat.

re: impact of kits on the flappy folk ima just drop this here w/o comment

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

again, not gonna comment but if i were to comment it’d prob be something along the lines of pots and kettles except like the pot has caused and is causing myriad — genocides? is that too loaded a term? well i spose we’re actually genociding ourselves/each other anyway so let’s just go with extinctions. and the kettle is one tiny weapon in the pot’s vast armory. and the pot is all “smdh @ u, kettle, with ur bloodthirsty destructive ways, tsk tsk, tut tut” while lounging on an ever-growing mountain of bones.

outside cats, it's too dark to read

Feels like I'm knockin' on heaven's cat door.

when I look back upon my life
it's never with a sense of shame
i ate the bird but i accept no blame
it's no sin

loll!

birbocide

There was a sentiment expressed upthread like if a bird (who can fly) can't get away from a cat (who can't fly), then maybe that bird wasn't meant to live.

Our cat doesn't do much hunting (or at least killing) anymore, even if his presence keeps pests away. But over the summer he did bring home a bird in his mouth. We were so proud of him, but then we learned that West Nile was making a lot of birds sick and vulnerable to old, fat cats.

ok if you look at the ethics of outdoor cattitude in terms of the CAT dying earlier, you may be thinking about it the wrong way round

Like, free-roaming predatory wild animals dying earlier is part and parcel of being wild predators - they take their chances. In some sense they may be happier this way, even given the risk. That is as it should be. There will be cars and foxes and coyotes and such. If you don't want your cat exposed to those possibilities, then keep your cat inside.

The proper question is about the animals they will inevitably eat when they're out there, and whether that is cool or not cool. I think that it is not cool, for reasons already discussed. But this, this is the relevant question in the thread.

The proper question is about the animals they will inevitably eat when they're out there, and whether that is cool or not cool. I think that it is not cool, for reasons already discussed.

considering that the majority of ILX is not vegan, (I'm not either), this whole "how dare you let your cat eat animals" stance feels a bit hypocritical. If the folks who are saying this are themselves vegan, then I stand corrected.

I totally get and respect the "i don't want my cat to get killed so i keep it inside" argument. Also, I am very glad that people have started posted pics of their cats in this thread.

personally I'm glad my landlord's cat killed that rat.

i stood over the rat and told it I was glad it was dead

but that's my fear of rats talking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSuH1E4yZxA

if you've had to smell and/or clean up ratshit, (not saying you haven't), you also have other reasons besides fear to appreciate the rodent death

don't you mean this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4H1RHqVI58

voted other, because it depends on where the "outside" is. would be a sin for us, as we have a nearby busy road and a garden that attracts birds.

this whole "how dare you let your cat eat animals" stance feels a bit hypocritical.

Well yeah it would be, if anyone had ever said what you quoted there. The issue isn't "cats shouldn't eat creatures" but "cumulatively, cats decimate wild bird populations and so we should consider that when deciding to let our pets roam outdoors"

sarahell, upon further thought I think it should be this one, do u see?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CYrJ1POzns

cumulatively, cats decimate wild bird populations and so we should consider that when deciding to let our pets roam outdoors

uh, that's just a more politely worded version of what I quoted ... still think that if y'all are merrily eating meat yourselves it still seems hypocritical. Or maybe the birds in your yards are just inherently more worthy of life than the ones you eat? idk ... it's not horrible to think that way tbh

Well yeah it would be, if anyone had ever said what you quoted there.

thx GD. I was going to say that climate change deniers and minimizers make an argument very similar to saying you must be a vegan to have legitimate concerns about the effects of half a billion cats on the ecosystem. It runs along the lines of: people who are clamoring about the climate crisis, but who still make use of gas-powered autos, fly in airplanes, or consume items transported by trucks are nothing but hypocrites, and they can't suggest that anyone else ought modify their habits until they have stopped using all fossil fuels themselves.

I've had inside cats all my adult life and haven't had any qualms about keeping them inside. Twice in the late oughts, an untagged/uncollared cat wandered up and adopted us, and I got it neutered and kept it fed as an outside cat. The first, Bruce, was a total stoner pal, and loved to climb into the large pot where I'd sown catnip and just laze around and occasionally smoke a bowl eat a leaf. He was safe in our fenced back yard, but one night he wandered into the front yard and was attacked and killed by roaming neighborhood dogs. This happened under my daughter's bedroom window, so she got to hear the whole thing. The next year, Ziggy adopted us, and one day went from apparently healthy to obviously dead of a respiratory issue before I could even get him to the vet. I like outside cats, and there are a couple on our block that come up to me for skritches, but the emotional whiplash is a bit much.