| Yep, although I don't think bans on outside cats are a good idea for several reasons. The key issue is controlling feral populations in a cultural context where large-scale hunting programs would never be tolerated by the public for obvious reasons. To do this we need to a) control the supply of fertile human-bred cats into the feral population and b) remove and neuter extant feral cats from the environment. We can accomplish both of these goals by mandating neutering and ID chips as you suggested, and temporarily banning or placing heavy restrictions on cat breeding. This will shift all the demand for pet cats onto rescued feral cats, which will finally provide the funding needed to put a dent in feral populations. In addition it should stop the flow of lost fertile cats into the environment. Now, it's not necessarily doable to train a formerly feral cat to spend the rest of its life inside. My cat lived most his life in the woods, and he completely loses his mind if he's stuck inside. No amount of toys and catnip can compensate for the ability to roam freely. And it's obvious that a feral cat kills orders of magnitude more wildlife than an outside cat with a cat flap and consistent access to food. There are also plenty of measures that can be taken like restricting outside cat ownership in areas with vulnerable animal populations, mandates for cats to wear bells etc. |
(Genuine question) source?
My impression from our neighbourhood is that outside cats - who also come and sit in our garden - are interested in birds because that's part of who they are, not just because they are hungry.