How Bad Is It to Let Your Cat Outside?
Andrew Small
2 days ago What does your cat do when it goes outdoors?
The question may linger in the mind of anyone who has an outdoor cat, and the answer has become quite a bit clearer in the age of YouTube and GoPro cameras. It’s not a pretty picture, though—just take it from this 2013 New York Times headline: “That Cuddly Kitty is Deadlier Than You Think.†An alarming study cited in that piece estimates that cats kill about 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals each year in the United States. About 29 percent of those bird deaths and 10 percent of those mammalian deaths could be attributed to house cats in particular, according to the study.
“Some cats don’t kill anything, some cats kill 20 animals a week,†says Peter Marra, a conservation biologist who co-authored the study as well as the book,Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer.
So should you let your pet cat outside, whether it’s to hang out in the backyard or to wander around the neighborhood? CityLab spoke with Marra to find out just how much damage these “cuddly killers†can do, and why he thinks it’s time for outdoor cat owners to do what many outdoor dog owners did about 50 years ago. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
So this starts as a kind of kitchen table debate: If you own a cat that you normally keep indoors, should you ever let it outside?
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http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/pets-animals/how-bad-is-it-to-let-your-cat-outside/ar-BBVxZsa?ocid=ientp