Zeke, a white-gray short-haired cat with a penchant for shooting rats, is known in his Boston neighborhood as a fearless hunter.
Once a neighbor called his owner, Tricia Brennan, and sounded a little panicky.
“Zeke sits in the back and seems to be chasing a raccoon,” the neighbor said, according to Ms. Brennan, a Unitarian Universalist minister.
“‘What shall I do?'”
The showdown ended when the neighbor scared off both creatures with a broom, but the story only confirmed Zeke’s legend. It was also a reminder that cats are descendants of the Near Eastern wildcat, a fierce, solitary hunter.
You’ve seen them out there – well-fed cats, sometimes collared, strolling the streets as if they own them or collapsing on a warm sidewalk to laze in the sun.
Cat lovers find them charming. Conservationists and birdwatchers see hairy killers and blame them for a decline in bird populations and the deaths of untold numbers of voles, squirrels and other small animals.
How you feel about outdoor cats can also depend on where you are in the world. In the United States, about 81 percent of domestic cats are kept indoors, according to a 2021 household cat demographic study. But elsewhere it may be much more common to let them roam. In Denmark, according to the same study, only 17 percent of cats are strictly indoor pets. In Turkey, it is so common for feral cats to roam freely in and out of cafes, restaurants and markets that a documentary has been made about the phenomenon. In Poland, they have recently been referred to as an ‘invasive alien species’.
And in the UK, where the 2021 survey found that 74 percent of cat owners let their cats roam outside, many cat charities are advising pet owners on the best ways to keep cats safe outdoors. The idea may be shocking to their American counterparts, who often refuse to adopt cats to people who want to keep their pets outside.
“We’ve always done it this way,” says Nicky Trevorrow, a cat behaviorist at Cats Protection in the UK, who encourages owners to bring cats in at night and feed them high-quality diets to deter predatory behavior.
The fascinating world of birds
“As a behaviorist,” said Ms. Trevorrow, “I’d really like to say I’m in camp giving cats space to breathe and be outside.”
But should cats have that much freedom?
“We can only get so many animals out of it.”
For much of the 20th century, most cats stayed outside, said David Grimm, author of “Citizen Canine: Our Evolving Relationship With Cats and Dogs” and a deputy news editor at Science.
The invention of cat litter in 1947 made indoor cats more acceptable.
“But even then, people considered cats to be the less domesticated animal,” Mr Grimm said. “And nobody wants to clean a litter box.”
In 1949, the Illinois General Assembly passed the “Cat Bill,” a bird protection measure that would have fined people who let their cats outside. Gov. Adlai Stevenson vetoed the bill.
“It’s in the nature of cats to roam a certain amount unaccompanied,” he said in a letter to lawmakers. “In my opinion, the state of Illinois and its local governing bodies already have enough to do without trying to control feline crime.”
It wasn’t until the 1980s and early 1990s that more Americans began bringing their cats indoors, as conservationists warned of declining bird populations and veterinarians warned that an outdoor cat was more susceptible to disease, parasites, and infections and could be vulnerable to attack from larger predators such as coyotes and hawks, or speeding cars.
But many owners also have trouble keeping a curious, restless creature inside, said Mr Grimm, who has trained his own cats to walk on a leash when they’re outside.
Keeping them in “didn’t feel right,” he said. “Just like I wouldn’t keep my kids inside all day. We can only get so many animals out of it.”
Mrs. Brennan, Zeke’s owner, tried to keep him inside at first. But he squeezed heels, yanked Mrs. Brennan’s hair, and jumped so hard that her teenage daughter locked herself in her room.
“It’s an uneasy peace you make,” said Ms. Brennan, 65, “having an outdoor cat.”
A killer named Tibbles?
Wildlife experts often tell the story of Tibbles, a cat who traveled to New Zealand with her owner in 1894.
The pair settled on Stephens Island, where a species of small, flightless bird abounded.
But when Tibbles arrived, she single-handedly hunted the birds to extinction, conservationists say.
Where cats have been introduced, they have decimated native creatures, according to a 2011 study by biologists.
“I’m pretty convinced it’s a pretty devastating invasive species,” said Jason Luscier, an associate professor of biology at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, NY. the number of outdoor cats around the world.
Professor Luscier, who emphasized his love for cats (“they are super cuddly”), said colonies of wild cats, which multiply easily and can overwhelm an ecosystem, pose the greater threat to birds and other wildlife, not outdoor pets that come in at night and are fed regularly.
Can cats roam outside ‘without carnage’?
Ms Trevorrow, the behavioral therapist in Britain, said people often fail to consider the bigger threats that birds face, such as habitat loss and the commercial use of pesticides that kill insects, birds’ natural prey.
“I just feel like cats are being used as scapegoats,” Ms Trevorrow said.
Britain’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said the decline in bird populations is mainly caused by man-made problems such as climate change, pollution and agricultural management.
While there’s some evidence that cats in Britain can kill up to 27 million birds a year, “there’s also some evidence that cats tend to catch weak or sickly garden birds,” said Anna Feeney, a spokeswoman for the organization.
“Cats are unlikely to have a major impact on populations,” she said in an email.
Ms Trevorrow has written guides for cat owners who want to keep their pets outside and maintain a garden that attracts birds and other pollinators.
“There’s a way to have both without carnage,” said Mrs Trevorrow.
Still, the best way to keep your cat — and wildlife — safe is to keep him on a leash, keep him in a fenced area, or build a “catio” that he can play outside without being exposed to the elements, said Dr. José Arce, a veterinarian and president of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Not all cats like the outdoors.
Kelly Goshe said two of her family’s three cats, Catson and Puff, are determined snipers. They roam around their patio and backyard in suburban Cleveland, under the watchful eye of her children, Sylvia, 9; Corina, 7; and Wesley, 4.
The cats gave them little choice, she said. Catson “will do whatever it takes to get out,” Sylvia said.
Puff has figured out how to open the sliding door with her feet, she said.
But Luna, Puff’s sister, is terrified to go outside.
“We left her at the screen door,” Mrs. Goshe said. “She’ll just look at it and walk away.”
Susan C. Beachy research contributed.
