I work with Save Our Shelters (SOS), a Richmond animal rights organization that’s leading the Trap, Neuter and Return effort that’s now ongoing at the site. You can read updates about the progress at SOS’s new blog here: saveourshelters.wordpress.com.

And as we have discussed here previously, putting TOO many restrictions on potential adopters can keep animals out of homes which can - ultimately - lead to more dead animals. So while I dislike unnecessarily contentious discussions - I do feel its a topic worth exploring.

No, Susan, that’s what’s known as an example. It’s not even close to being the only case I know of, of a cat being killed by a predator.

Re predators: most American domestic cat habitats don’t have those you mention either. Now, if I lived where there were coyotes, which I understand will kill any cat they can, I would use the type of cat containment fence that Gina mentions.

So, maybe not quite so “yuk” huh?

I live in an urban area in the northeast, and we have coyotes. Yes, inside the city. We also have hawks—fairly large ones. And opossums. Raccoons aren’t completely danger-free for smaller cats, either.

And don’t forget domestic dogs as cat killers. More than one dog has ended up at our county shelter because it killed a cat, goat or other animal. Dogs can be quite the predators. If they are found near livestock in our county, they can be shot on sight. No need to shovel or shut up, either.

Yes, Susan, the possibility of free-roaming domestic dogs is another excellent reason for keeping your cats safe, and not letting them have the “freedom” to become prey.

What I object to is people judging and dissing
other people based on no knowledge of the specific circumstances and their own unexamined assumptions. Not the least because it gets in the way of what everyone who comments here regularly really obviously cares about, which is the animals. You are all so great!

Uh, Susan, maybe you need to reread your own comments to which I was originally responding.

Re predators: most American domestic cat habitats don’t have those you mention either. Now, if I lived where there were coyotes, which I understand will kill any cat they can, I would use the type of cat containment fence that Gina mentions. And don’t forget domestic dogs as cat killers. More than one dog has ended up at our county shelter because it killed a cat, goat or other animal. Dogs can be quite the predators. If they are found near livestock in our county, they can be shot on sight. No need to shovel or shut up, either.

Gina, interesting about the cat haters. Too bad you have to wade through that drek so we don’t have to. If I knew there was a cat hater in our neighborhood, I would take action to contain our cats on our property. If a neighbor came to me with a legit complaint, I would act, also. There are two newish dogs next door, which I don’t know well. We have made sure that the cats can’t get under the fence on that side of the property.

I totally agree with Emily, it depends on the situation. (And also on her comments on factory-farmed animals). We are on a dead-end street on an acre in a rural residential area. We chose it partly because it was safer for the animals and I know that we were fortunate to be able to make that choice.

What I object to is people judging and dissing
other people based on no knowledge of the specific circumstances and their own unexamined assumptions. Not the least because it gets in the way of what everyone who comments here regularly really obviously cares about, which is the animals. You are all so great!

And yes, I know about those containment systems that let them “experience” the outdoors and I might use one if one of my cats was sick, injured or old and we needed to keep an eye on them. Otherwise, yuk.

Susan, the UK is almost completely lacking in predators large enough to take a cat—a fox would be about an even match, and that really leaves only the badger, not commonly found in cities. No mountain lions, coyotes, fishers, alligators, crocs, wolves. I have a friend with whom I used to have an ongoing discussion of the “unnatural” practice of keeping cats indoors, which I urged upon her and she resisted—right up until her beloved cat was killed by a fisher. Talk about yuk.

The point that’s being made above, however, has nothing to do with livestock wandering “willy-nilly.” It’s about the movement to force agribusiness to stop factory-farming, where animals such as pigs spend their entire lives crammed in stalls so small they can’t even turn around. Such conditions are miserable for these “meat machines” and unsafe for the environment — and us — because of the concentrated excrement that runs off from these places, plus the antibiotics that get into the water from efforts to keep meat animals alive in unnatural conditions.

So, Emily’s point was well-taken, and in fact, it IS interesting that many people are pushing for more natural environments for meat animals at the same time that they’re pushing for un-natural environments for cats. And that these are often the same people!

As I said, I think there IS a solution for cats, and that’s to have access to a yard or area with cat fencing installed. As for the songbird issue, for me it’s concern largely overemphasized.

Yes, cats kill birds (and also vermin we need killed, such as mice and rats). But when we blame cats for songbird deaths, we’re overlooking the fact that the No. 1 threat to birds is … people. In other words, people who eat burgers from cattle grown on clear-cut rain-forest habitat shouldn’t throw stones at cats, nor should those who live in homes in fragile environmental areas.

Again, I would prefer to see cats contained in a way that allows them to live a healthy, engaged and happy life. But to me people who want to kill cats to protect birds are often just cat-haters looking for an excuse to indulge their hatred. I know, because I get hate-filled e-mails from these people every week, and of all the hate mail I get — and it’s a pretty significant amount, you’d be surprised — the cat-haters generally stand out for the amount of spittle that spews onto their computer screens as they discuss all the ways they want cats to die.

Which is, most practically, another reason why my cat doesn’t roam.

It is easy to assume people who disagree are in some way inferior or wrong, but probably they just have a different perspective. I find it interesting how the rhetoric is mobilised to take livestock outdoors, but put cats and dogs indoors without any apparent connecting of the dots. Freedoms come with risks unavoidably attached for all species.

Now we want freedom for chicken but safety for cats. That probably has more to do with our priorities than their essentially different needs (they both need both security and adventure/natural behaviors.)

I do experiments that show how livestock want to be out of small pens and I find farmers very convinced by this data—while pet owners are typically far less interested in their cats sometimes obviously desperate desire to get out from time to time.

As it happens I think the cat thing just depends. Some outdoor environments are quite safe, some are not, and some places are just not good or reporonsible homes for cats. For example if you want to live on the beach and watch the pretty wading birds, an outdoor cat is probably destroying part of the very environment you want to live in. They do predate flightless birds.