this post was submitted on 24 May 2025
1151 points (96.8% liked)
cats
23394 readers
1730 users here now
Typical internet cats. Videos, pics, memes, and discussion welcome!
Rule 1) Be kind
Rule 2) Follow the lemmy.world rules
other cat communities midwest.social cats
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
"Outdoor cats" are an invasive species that kill billions of animals every year, are a significant contributor to dozens of species' extinction, and live shorter lives than cats properly cared for (i.e. kept indoors) including nearly 3x the risk for infections.
It's a plague. We can't keep normalizing this.
You should be aware this is an extremely American sentiment bordering on ignorant. Nowhere else in the world do you find people berating people for letting cats go outside.
Even in America, you won't find it. It's only coming from chronically-online people who are afraid of everything.
I'm sure if you could communicate the dangers to your cats, most of them would still choose to go outside. Locking cats indoors their entire lives is cruel.
None of the shelters or adoption agencies near me will even let you get a cat if you don't say it will be kept indoors on the papers. Cats can easily be given the same level of enrichment indoors by playing with them.
Keeping your cat indoors is only cruel when you don't care enough about them to play and provide enrichment to make them happy, in which case you shouldn't have a cat.