• thepreciousboar@lemm.ee
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    1 day ago

    “Outdoor cats” are just cats. They are not a domesticated species, hunting is their instinct, and should just not be introduced in places where they wreck havoc to the environment. Where they are endemic (Europe and continental Asia) they don’t cause troubles to the ecosystem

    • priapus@sh.itjust.works
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      18 hours ago

      As long as you spend time providing your cat proper enrichment to express their hunting instincts, an indoor cat will be just as happy as an outdoor cat.

      • thepreciousboar@lemm.ee
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        16 hours ago

        In my experience it highly depends on the cat. Some are perfectly content with proper scratchers and toys inside, some just visibly suffer staying inside, it might help we are far from the busy city with plenty of green and huntable animals, but most of our cats spend ~80% of time outdoor during summer and ~30% during winter.

    • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
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      21 hours ago

      Wrong. Outdoor cats pose a significant risk to birds in Europe as well, especially because Europe has massively reduced the habitat of wildlife in recent centuries.

      Cats found 200-500 meters away from any property are shot by hunters in Germany. Between 2007 and 2022 over 160,000 cats were killed in just 5/16 German states (the remaining one’s don’t publish numbers).

    • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      Nobody minds them when they’re catching rats.

      Domestic cats arent the problem; ferals are…usually from owners who abandon them.

      We dont have a bird shortage by any stretch…they come and eat the leftover cat food.

      • Solumbran@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        I definitely do mind, as much as when they kill birds or even insects.

        A pet shouldn’t be allowed to murder all day long.