Okay time for another PSA to not let your pet cats free roam outdoors ever. (If you think you don't have the space indoors for a cat to be happy or the willingness to give your cat what it needs indoors then don't have a cat. That means you can't take care of it so don't get it. Also, you clearly don't care about a cat's "natural needs" if you don't also keep it fully up to date on health check ups/vaccinations, give it enrichment and feed it only pure raw meat at home. They're obligate carnivores. Kibble is why they develop and die of kidney issues.)
They indisputably cause incredible damage to ecosystems and due to the way they became domesticated to eradicate pests, they are built to kill and maim indiscriminately and with extreme prejudice. Your pet cat does not hunt to eat when it has a safe bed and food at home. It hunts to slaughter. Because it's instincts say so, even if you think it's a chill lazy cat (what are the feather and mouse toys for but to satisfy those instincts?).
Whether or not a direct attack kills a small animal, it will most certainly still die of complications (like ruptured air sacs in birds -an incredibly painful way to go-, blood loss, disability, necrosis, cellulitis, and septicemia), countless serious infections from the cat's claws and mouth, inhalation of blood/stomach contents, or other infection from exposure to the environment. That is if it totters along on its will to survive, suffering, and manages to escape the next predator that comes along.
And if you couldn't care less about the local ecosystem and countless species that have gone extinct by cats under our very noses, you should worry about your cats' safety and the possibility of infection and parasites that they bring home to you and transmit to other pets, people, and homes they visit.
Cats will be run over or killed/injured by people, either by accident or intentionally (many people see any kind of small animal as target practice for their car or dart gun or whatever else and don't care if it's a cat. Maybe they even do it to protect their livestock, e.g. chickens, rabbits). Cats will get into fights with other animals. Cats will get eaten by coyotes. Cats will hide or shrug off injuries. Cats will meet other cats from different circumstances. Cats will carry rabies or be bitten by a vector animal and the only way to test for rabies is to take a slice of the brain (i.e., kill the animal in question). Cats will walk back into your yard and home with everything they picked up along the way, if not on their body then in their mouths after grooming and in their litterbox. Putting your cat, yourself, and others in that sort of danger is more neglectful than keeping them indoors. Letting them bring everything back to your home is negligent. Letting them infect and harm other animals is negligent ("dangerous" dogs who stay in their own yards get euthanized for less). It does not matter what part of the world you live in. Letting your pet cat outdoors is neglect and malicious behavior.
And in case you think you're not at risk from disease from your own cat or you want relevant, recent news to back this up, here's an article X , posted 07 August 2023, about a UK man contracting a completely unknown bacterium from a stray cat, initially resistant to certain antibiotics, that started to kill the infected flesh, and here's the scientific study about identifying the bacteria X
Who knows what your own cat gets up to outside or what other animals they meet?
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Remembering how my former favorite local coffee shop sent an email announcing they would be stopping all curbside pickup and changing from an outdoor pickup window with masked employees to exclusively inside to "bring the community back together" and dropping their mask wearing policy.
Fuck you. You have now excluded me from your community and put your employees at risk.
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