Keep Cats Indoors

Cats Are best Kept Indoors

Domestic cats are an unnatural predator that native animals and birds are unable to coexist with. Furthermore, not just birds are affected by cat predator. Sixty to seventy of a cat's prey is small mammals, 20 to 30% birds, and 10% other animals including reptiles, amphibians, and insects (Eberhard, 1954 and "Keep Cats", 1998). In a study printed in Biological Conservation it was discovered that On average a cat depredated between 0.7 and 1.4 birds per week (Lepczyk, et. al., 2003 and "Keep Cats", 1998). Given the percentages of bird prey, that means an even greater number of damage is being done to other animals. Cats and wildlife can only coexist where cats are kept indoors. Remember, a properly cared for cat is kept indoors and causing zero damage to wildlife populations.

The American Bird Conservancy offers the following tips for trapping cats, "Many animal control agencies or shelters have humane live traps to lend to homeowners who need to trap a nuisance animal. Use bait such as sardines or tuna spread on newspaper or a paper plate, and put it in the back of the trap such that the cat must enter the trap to get the bait. Regularly check the trap, preferably every hour. A word of caution: well-fed cats can be hard to trap. You may also end up with non-target animals such as raccoons, opossums, or skunks, so avoid trapping at night." Live traps can also be purchased from farm supply stores or online with shipping as inexpensive as five dollars.

Cats that are allowed to roam outside also pose a risk to pregnant women. From the Center for Disease Control's website "Women who are thinking about becoming pregnant should be especially careful about toxoplasmosis because this disease can infect the fetus and cause a malformation or abortion ("Toxoplasma Infection and Animals"). The CDC also tells us how one can contact the disease, "Toxoplasmosis is passed to people from contaminated cat feces (stool). People can get toxoplasmosis by cleaning kitty litter or touching dirt where cats might have been, including garden soil. Toxoplasmosis can also be passed to people when they eat meat that is not cooked completely, especially pork, lamb, or deer meat" ("Toxoplasma Infection and Animals"). The CDC recommends to following procedures to prevent the disease:

• "Wash your hands thoroughly with running water and soap after contact with cat feces (stool) and after gardening."
  
• "If you are pregnant or immunocompromised, try to have another person non-pregnant or immunocompromised clean out the litter box every day."
  
• "Clean out kitty litter boxes daily (not when pregnant)."
  
• "If you are pregnant or immunocompromised, keep your cats indoors."
  
• "Avoid eating undercooked meat." "Do not feed undercooked meat to your cat."
  
• All taken from "Toxoplasma Infection and Animals" (see bibliography at the end of this article)
  

References

Eberhard, T. 1954. Food habits of Pennsylvania house cats. Journal of Wildlife Management ,18, 284-286. 

Lepczyk, Christopher A., Angela G. Mertig, and Jianguo Liu. 2003. Landowners and cat predation across rural-to-urban landscapes. Biological Conservation, 115, 191-201. (1998). 

Keep Cats Indoors.Retrieved Jan 8 2008 from http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/rouge_river/cats.html.

Toxoplasma Infection and Animals. Retrieved August 27 2008 from http://www.cdc.gov/HEALTHYPETS/diseases/toxopasmosis.htm

(2004). WHAT TO DO ABOUT YOUR NEIGHBOR’S CATS IN YOUR YARD. Retrieved Aug 8 2008 from
http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/cats/materials/cats_in_yard.pdf