I am a convert.
I love cats....but any future cat pets will be exclusively indoor.
I grew up with, and have invited into my life many cats which weren't....thinking it was a bit cruel to keep a cat indoors only, disallowing it to exercise its catty-ness outdoors in the big world. They do have that nature....but we live in a world in which birds have become truly and alarmingly and catastrophically decreased in populations....and we must change that narrative.
That's the bottom line.
It's bad enough that we use toxic pesticides and herbicides to the extent we do, which harms the avian population. But cats are no doubt the #1 danger to our ''backyard' birds and it's up to each one of us to put an end to that danger.
If we want a cat, then we treat it like we would any other pet---whether it be a dog, a hamster, a ferret, a caged bird, a monkey, a snake or a fish: we don't let them run around outside, loose.
My last two beloved cats, which moved with our family to the NW, from Wisconsin....were both lost in the same 3 months, to the 'outdoors'. A combination of fireworks, racoons, coyotes and/or other wild predators took them away from us.
But now I know it was really WE--who let them go.
If they'd been indoor cats, they would have had long and rich lives being loved and tended to, and we could have shared much longer in their wonderful cat-ness.
I wish I'd known better, sooner.
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