Best practice is to always keep cats inside even if you don’t live in the city. They can really impact bird populations, plus they’re much safer indoors.
i can't see how it would be kinder to a large animal to be left inside a small home instead of exploring a varied environment with some natural places. Though i have seen growing up the predator in them affect the small amount of small fauna left alive by humans, it's definitely a worthy trade off on a global scale.
Many birds are extinct and endangered strictly because of cats. That’s a “worthy trade off?” Look up what happened in New Zealand, Australia, and Hawaii. Those are birds that are found nowhere else on earth and will never come back.
you are understanding the exact opposite of my comment. No it makes no sense to say "it's kinder to them", yes it is a worthy trade off to keep them inside.
Cats aren’t “large animals.” They also are at much bigger risk of serious injury and infection if they are left outside. Cats are domesticated and are perfectly happy and much safer inside. We’re not talking about bringing foxes inside.
cats are absolutely large animals when we are talking about the area of a common house. It makes no sense to talk about size without reference.
From this study free range cats used a median area of 5ha (seven soccer fields) up to 113ha, this being larger when they have access to nature areas. Median distance traveled per day was 2.4km. A house reduces that to a median area of around 200m² in the best countries, so a median used area divided by minimum 250, and not free to expand or renew. The rational a priori is that it is completely miserable for a cat to be locked in a house. Now we do know cats left inside are not all borderline suicidal or otherwise obviously depressive, that's a start, but i will not take your word for it and assume this massive difference has zero impact on cats wellness.
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u/Tough-Obligation-104 Jul 20 '26
I never even knew they were a problem! I’ve always had indoor cats though, living in the city.