What Indoor Cats Miss

Being Hit By a Car
Being Stolen
Getting Lost
Fights with other cats, dogs, skunks or raccoons
Fleas, worms and ticks
Exposure to diseases from other cats and animals
Cruel people mistreating and abusing them
Rain, wind and cold temperatures
Animal traps
Accidental poisoning
Fear and loneliness

General Hazards to Free-Roaming Cats

Cars

Cars kill millions of cats each year in the United States and maim countless others, either from being hit or from crawling inside the hood of a car to get warm in the winter.

Poisoning

Cats can find chemicals that are poisonous to them on treated lawns, in rat or mice bait, and on driveways and roads from antifreeze leaked or drained from cars. Antifreeze tastes sweet to a cat, but as little as one teaspoon can be fatal.

Other Animals

Outdoor cats can be injured or killed by free-roaming dogs, wildlife, and other cats. Cats can suffer torn ears, scratched eyes, abscesses and other injuries requiring expensive veterinary treatment. Diseases can be transmitted by bites and scratches from infected animals.

Human Abuse

Animal care and control agencies often learn of situations in which cats have been burned, stabbed, poisoned, or hurt by other means. Free-roaming cats are also susceptible to theft.

Traps

Cats can get caught in traps and those that don't die immediately may starve or suffer for days before being released. Cats caught in leg snares and leg hold traps may lose limbs from injuries.

Sun

White cats and cats with white noses or ears are susceptible to skin cancer. Their ears can be eaten away by the cancer caused by expose to the sun for long periods of time.

Overpopulation

Unaltered outdoor cats are the major source of the cat overpopulation problem, causing millions of unwanted cats to be euthenized at animal shelters each year. Humane societies and animal care and control agencies struggle daily to rescue, treat, feed, and house stray and unwanted cats. Without the biological urge to roam to find a mate, spayed or neutered cats live more contentedly indoors. It is estimated that in the US there are 60 to 100 million homeless cats. These cats lead short, miserable lives.  

How many birds and other wildlife do domestic cats kill each year in the US?

No one knows, although reasonable extrapolations from scientific data can be made. Nationwide, cats are estimated to kill hundreds of millions of birds and more than a billion small mammals, such as rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels, and shrews each year. Cats kill not only plentiful animals but rare and endangered species for which the loss of even one animal is significant.

Some people presume that a cat killing certain animals, such as field mice, is beneficial, but native small mammals are important to maintaining biologically diverse ecosystems. Mice and shrews are an important food source for birds such as the Great Horned Owl, Red tailed Hawk and American Kestrel.

Some free-roaming domestic cats kill more than 100 animals each year. Some cats specialize in killing birds while others take mainly small mammals. One regularly fed cat that roamed a wildlife experiment station was recorded to have killed more than 1600 animals (mostly small mammals) over 18 months. Rural cats take more prey than suburban or urban cats. Birds that nest or feed on the ground are the most susceptible to cat predation, as are nestlings and fledglings of many other bird species.

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