Keeping cats indoors is a rare solution where everybody wins | Calla Wahlquist
www.theguardian.com
In the debate over protecting native wildlife from domestic felines, one thing is often overlooked: cats should be kept indoors for the sake of cats

I am not here to make the case that cats should be kept indoors for the sake of local wildlife – that case has been made over and over and over and over again. Cat owners know these arguments, and if they have not been persuaded by the fact that cats kill more than 6 million native animals in Australia a day they will not be persuaded by me.

There is a fairly tedious assumption that if you love wildlife you must hate cats, and visa versa. And nothing will turn cat people off faster than encountering a person who hates cats.

I understand this. I also hate people who hate cats. So let’s set the birds and the bettongs to one side for the moment, and consider the other, obvious fact: cats should be kept indoors for the sake of cats.

  • Instigate@aussie.zone
    735·
    1 year ago

    Cat owner and avid environmentalist here: totally agree. I’ve always kept my cats inside for the obvious environmental reasons, but ask any vet and they’ll tell you that indoor cats lead much longer, healthier lives.

    We need to start treating dogs and cats the same way - if there’s a cat around without it’s owner and it’s not leashed, it goes to the pound. $250 fee to retrieve your cat to pay for boarding and also donate to the pound that receives them. If people had to pay $250 and drive all the way to the pound to pick up their cat every time they let them out, I can tell you that outdoor cat owners will go one of two ways: they’ll either stop owning cats (big win) or they’ll keep them inside (also big win).

    • Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow@lemmy.world
      51·
      1 year ago

      How do you deal with a cat that’s used to roaming?

      We have one indoor only cat but the other one was a feral kitten we found and we have never been able to contain them without them going nuts, which makes the indoor cat miserable too.

      • Kangie@lemmy.srcfiles.zip
        6·
        1 year ago

        Time, in my experience.

        I’ve rehabilitated several feral cats, each older than 2 years. It just takes a few weeks to adjust.

      • Instigate@aussie.zone
        31·
        1 year ago

        That’s a hard one because I’ve never experienced it before myself. I guess it depends on what you mean by ‘going nuts’. My assumption is that the longer you keep them inside, the more they adapt to the lifestyle and the easier it will become. You could also build a cat run / outdoor enclosure for them, or leash and harness train them to go on walks. I’ve had good experiences with using feliway to help calm cats too - that may help. If the issue is that the kitten is territorial, then it might help to set up a private area for them and ensure that they have their own separate litter box that other cats can’t use.

  • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
    394·
    1 year ago

    Indoor cats live longer, healthier lives. And they can even be harness-trained to be able to enjoy going outside on walkies!

    • glittalogik@kbin.social
      82·
      1 year ago

      Our two cats get supervised time in the backyard every couple of days - we used to put them in harnesses until we moved to a place with high enough fences that they couldn’t get out even if they wanted to.

      Mostly they just wanna chew grass for 15 minutes and maybe investigate a random plant bed, and they quickly learned that if they come back inside when called they get treats :)

        • glittalogik@kbin.social
          51·
          1 year ago

          about 2m-ish I guess? Our eldest miiight be able to make it up there if he wanted to, but he’s a timid momma’s boy with no interest in venturing out of his safe space. His little brother would if he could, but he’s built like a kitbull - all shoulders and stumpy legs, not exactly made for jumping :)

  • Nonameuser678@aussie.zone
    262·
    1 year ago

    Cats are one of the most adaptive species on this planet. All of their needs can be met inside. Inside cats in Australia have a better quality of life than a lot of humans do around the world.

  • Dr M@feddit.de
    20·
    1 year ago

    When I adopted my cats the shelter and foster people asked if the cats will stay inside or go outside and when I said inside they all made a sigh of releave and the shelter workers said “thank god, thats definitely the best for them”. I build them a small cage that I put up at the window in my old flat, now I have a balcony where they can roam and when I live in a house with a garden at some point they will get a big catio.

    I think that them being able to safely go outside a little bit is important, the outside world gives them so much different experiences. Wind, fresh air, outside noices, smells from neighbors barbecuing. But yeah, leaving them completely outside is not good

  • Goodie@lemmy.world
    15·
    1 year ago

    Live in NZ. My kitten is, and will always be an indoors cat. When i finally get to a larger house she’ll have a lovely catio.

    • mycatiskai@lemmy.one
      7·
      1 year ago

      This is the best option. My parents built a catio that ran from a cat door along their actual patio then went tall and up to a covered window so the cats could go in and out through either entryway.

    • Norah - She/They@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      Surprised a similar law mandating cats stay inside hasn’t been implemented in NZ. Considering all of the work y’all are doing with the Predator Free 2050 project.

        • batmangrundies@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          I’m sorry but New Zealanders generally make Aussies look like Woodstock-era hippies.

          They are very conservative generally.

          I wish people would stop putting NZ on a pedestal. They have ceded often to agricultural interests over environmental concerns resulting in untold damage. The damage they have done to their soil and waterways is apocalyptic.

          I always giggle at the idea of Billionaires “escaping” there not realising the soil is completely depleted already and the water table is poisoned by agricultural runoff.

      • Goodie@lemmy.world
        99·
        1 year ago

        The question is how?

        Taking outdoor cats and making them indoor is pretty cruel.

        It seems easiest to first require all cats to be regged/microchipped, and a few years in start a “cats born after X date must be kept indoors and not roaming.”

  • legios@aussie.zoneEnglish
    6·
    1 year ago

    Cat owner here too. One of my cats is a pure-breed Maine Coon, the other is a domestic mid/long hair. They have never ever been outdoors cats (well, the latter was a stray so I guess she was?) but they’re indoors kitties now. No issues at all, they have no interest to go outside. They are happy and content. I support indoors-only cats, and this is from someone who lives in a shoebox apartment.

  • dangblingus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    41·
    1 year ago

    I am not here to make the case that cats should be kept indoors for the sake of local wildlife – that case has been made over and over and over >and over again. Cat owners know these arguments, and if they have not been persuaded by the fact that cats kill more than 6 million native >animals in Australia a day they will not be persuaded by me.

    I’m here to tell you, most people are idiots that don’t read.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    41·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Most days, when the sun hits that part of the floorboards, our cat Laurie can be found there, lazing in a sunbeam watching the birds through the glass.

    The Invasive Species Council responded by calling on the New South Wales government to introduce laws requiring that cats be kept indoors.

    She escaped a few times when she was younger, usually making it no more than one body length from the door before freezing in terror at the overwhelming vastness of the outdoors.

    Once, when we were visiting my parents’ farm, I clipped her into a harness with the expectation that she would enjoy exploring the yard, but she flattened her robust body to the ground and refused to move.

    There was a moment, in our first winter in this house, when we woke to the sound of rats chewing the ceiling, then I wished my old cat Elmo was still alive.

    If Nugget hadn’t lost the leg and decided to stick closer to home, I doubt she would have lived past five.

    The original article contains 921 words, the summary contains 172 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.spaceEnglish
    75·
    1 year ago

    CSIRO should either (a) generically engineer a cat that doesn’t function as an ambush predator (making them congenitally short-sighted could help, though iridescent fur that prey see from a mile away would also make them more appealing as pets), or (b) work on creating domesticable variants of sufficiently catlike native marsupials to replace cats as pets

  • Ringmasterincestuous@aussie.zoneEnglish
    619·
    1 year ago

    👀 phew! thank god it’s another article throwing stones at other species on the planet fucking up the wildlife.

    #innocent4lyfe

    • Nath@aussie.zone
      152·
      1 year ago

      Cats are innocent in so far as it’s not their fault that they are super efficient carnivorous hunters. No native bird or mammal found in suburbia stands a chance against a cat.

      It’s their human owners who let them roam who are at fault for the devastation they cause on native wildlife.

    • Gymcap@lemmy.ml
      152·
      1 year ago

      Cats messing up the wildlife is at the fault of humans. These articles aren’t telling you we need to get rid of or punish cats, it’s telling humans they need to treat their cats with better understanding. Talking about how cats mess up wildlife isn’t blaming cats, it’s blaming humans for putting them there and letting them fuck up wildlife, especially when all signs point to everyone being happier and healthier if they are kept indoors.