I absolutely, really, hate that this gets spun around as “keeping a cat inside is cruel” or “my kitty is innocent” or whatever.
“Don’t let your cats outside because it’s dangerous for them!!”. No, it’s really not. The cat IS the danger. The hedgehogs, the birds, the polecats, all other small to medium mammals are terrorized by your cat. The actual medium sized predators are forced out of their territories, because they actually have to live on the food they catch, and don’t just hunt for fun.
I really don’t care if it’s cruel to the cat if it’s kept from killing hundreds of animals over the course of its life. But it’s always about the “cute little uwu kitties”.
And the idea of a neighborhood cat is somehow normalized. It’s normal to see a cat on the street for some reason. They’re “cute”, and every neighborhood has at least one. Awesome.
You might think I’m irrationally angry about this. But the fact is, that cats kill billions of birds [1] in the U.S yearly. Do you know how much a billion is? It’s almost unimaginable.
But it’s somehow normal. And I come across as a cat hater when I mention this to people who let their cats outside.
I wish I could like cats, and I did use to. But now, they’re just a symbol of death for me.
[1] www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380 (I’m aware that ~70% are caused by un-owned cats, but how many cat ladies supporting them are in your neighborhood?)