When you allow your cat to roam freely outside, you not only expose a beloved companion to potential harm, but you also affect the people and animals in your community. At the very least, your cat may dig in your neighbors' flower beds and defecate in their kids' sandboxes. But free-roaming cats also have far more serious effects:
Overpopulation
Local governments spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year controlling stray animals. Although most animal control laws were passed to protect citizens from stray dogs, cats are now a major focus of animal care and control agencies, which collectively shelter millions of lost and homeless cats each year and respond to thousands of cat-related complaints.
Rabies
Cats who roam, particularly after dark, are likely to come into contact with nocturnal creatures such as raccoons and skunks, the primary transmitters of rabies in the wild. As a result, cats are now the most common domestic transmitters of rabies, with 278 cases reported in the United States in 1999.
Wildlife
Free-roaming cats kill millions of wild animals each year. Studies show that most of the animals killed are small mammals such as chipmunks and field mice, and approximately 25% are birds. Well-fed housecats kill wildlife because of their instinct to hunt prey, not because they need the food. Cats are not a part of natural ecosystems, and their predation causes unnecessary death to wild animals. This can cause conflicts among neighbors, pitting gardeners and bird lovers against cat owners who allow their charges to roam.
Print out our Safe Cats PDFs:
A Safe Cat Is a Happy Cat
The Uninvited Cat
Cat Care Basics
Guide to Cat Law
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Generous support for the Safe Cats campaign was provided by The Kenneth A. Scott Charitable Trust, a KeyBank Trust, and the Frances V.R. Seebe Trust.
