Swiss Cat Ladders: Documenting and Deconstructing Feline-Friendly Infrastructure
99percentinvisible.org
99percentinvisible.org
And this is around Winkelriedstrasse, so pretty very much in the city proper.
Usually these seem to come out of small little fix ups to make it easier for cats to do what they're trying to do anyway.
Plenty of ladders, catwalks and holes out to allow semi-feral cats the ability to dart of when someone walks into the room.
For example they have the 'dryer gang' of cats that like to sit on the dryer, and I've seen photos where there's like six of them trying to snuggle in there and not fall off, so of course the sanctuary responded by adding in a shelf above the dryer so more cats can linger around it.
My favourite bizarre piece of cat furniture is in a washroom where someone bolted a small skateboard right over top an electric baseboard heater, allowing a single cat to snooze there and take in all that heat.
My neighbor let’s his cat in and out through a small door he made into a back window, and she is the fattest laziest cat I’ve ever seen, and has never been run over. But I just can’t get over the car issue.
A few neighbors opposed the stair. My friend had to consult with a lawyer and go through some annoying process to argue that the opposing neighbors were a minority and he was entitled to build the stair. It may have had something to do with a technicality, such as the neighbors missing some deadline and thus failing to register their disapproval (unfortunately, I don't fully remember all the details).
In the end, he built the stair, but only one of his cats used it — the other one, the one with the twisted tail, would have nothing with it.
Four months ago, my friend went to hike the trails around Machu Picchu. His mother stayed at his place, watching the cats, mail, watering the plants, etc.. While he was abroad, a car ran over the cat, who died one or two days later.
I think the stair is still up, but now it never gets any use.
One cat (no discernible breed, long black hair) would attempt to jump out the door every opportunity that it got. Finally it escaped, and would periodically escape through pushing out the screen on any window someone would forget to close. Eventually, she disappeared entirely - likely she died, since with no claws she could not protect herself from the wild of this Rocky Mountain state. This is a painful reminder that declawing is a bad idea.
The other cat lives still (a Birman and/or Ragdoll variety, famously docile breed). It was always terrified of the outdoors and continues to have no interest in them.
How would you feel if you were forced to live in a cage all your life when you yearned to be free? For some cats, this is cruelty. Keep those inside that you can, and some of the damage you mention will be minimized.
How would you feel if you had to eat cat food all your life, like your ass clean several times a day, and never brush your teeth in your whole life? The point being that you don’t think like a cat and a cat doesn’t think like you: you’re two different animals.
Any animal would Ben Isérables in a literal cage. Luckily there are lots of things to do in a house and windows to look through. Not regally a cold steel 2 sqm barren space like a cage would be.
A house cat has a hunting ground around their home with a radius of 500m average. Male house cats can have up three times that even.
If you absolutely want to have a cat and live in the inner city either get an old cat that (unfortunately) grew up indoors already or don't get a cat at all.
[0] https://www.gwern.net/Cat-Sense ; search for "91 meters"
Cats who stay indoors are much healthier, live 15-20 years, and are just as happy. Of course you need to play with them more so they don’t get bored, they need to have access to windows to look at interesting things all day. But it’s really only cruel if you expect your cat to live its own life without ever going outdoors. Otherwise they really don’t care.
Ask any vet what they think of letting cats outdoors, you’d be surprised.
And in the case of declawed cats: the pain can be so strong for the rest of their lives that it can drive them nuts causing all sorts of behavior problems. It’s illegal in a lot of places because that is cruel.
So, who's anecdote is worth more? Or should we just agree that not all cats are alike, not all environments are alike
See also https://www.americanhumane.org/fact-sheet/indoor-cats-vs-out..., http://www.thehumanesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/i... (PDF warning)
Here is the UK Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals advice regarding cats: https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/pets/cats
Notice how it has a link to another page titled "Help keep your cat safe outside"
We moved to a house with a fairly large garden in the country about 3 years ago and we gradually let them out - initially on leads, then supervised and now the one remaining one will go out occasionally when it is warm for a 'hunt' (he has never caught anything other than spiders and even then he doesn't know what to do with them) or to clamber along the walls and have a sleep in the sun.
We've had outdoor cats all my life.
Don't recall a single one that died so young. Maybe Ginger, but he got cancer, so I'm not going to blame that on his access to the outdoors.
Attacked? By whom? Cats fight for territory; this is natural.
For every point you bring I can bring several anecdotes that counter it since I grew up in the countryside and with cats. And they are anecdotes -- just as what you said is w/o substance w/o any statistics. But here I go anyway:
Our first cat who lived until 17 years was wounded twice by other cats and once by rats. We had to have her treated only for the rat attack (antibiotics and some stitches).
But that's expected. I had several accidents in my life. Certainly, if I never left my apartment/home/house they could have been avoided. But maybe then I would be depressed or have killed myself already ... unless I had access to window of course, to entertain me ... pardon my sarcasm.
Seven years? I grew up on the countryside, village outside of Hamburg. We always had cats.
After the first one died a neighbour's cat choose my parents as new can openers because the neighbours separated and the woman took the cat and the children and moved to an apartment on the other side of town. The cat just escaped and ran back to his territory. After the third time this happened the woman gave up bringing him back.
He died four years ago at the age of 18.5.
Seven years? No evidence for this here. With all the cats of our friends. One just died after 25 years. And they live in a small town with lots more traffic than my parents.
Same goes for all the cats in the neighborhood of my parents house. I know most of them because they 'visit' as their territories overlap.
Yes, we had friends who took two kittens from us. They lived next to a big road outside the village. After both got ran over by cars they stopped trying to have a cat (instead of opting to have on inside their 350sqm house, mind you). So it's a case by case decision for outdoor cats too.
There are many factors that affect life span of a pet. I would be very careful with correlating indoor/outdoor as you do.
Happiness: definitely. I've never seen an indoor cat w/o issues. They're minor when they have good owners and care but they are always there.
Besides, personally, I'd rather have a shorter, happier life, than a long dreadful one. That's just me and I can choose. I go out lots, I drink alcohol, I drive a motorbike on freeways and a bicycle in rush hour traffic. All factors that are shortening my life expectancy. I choose so.
Pets can't; no one asks them. But I would know what side of the answer to bet on if we ever can.
Declawed? I never even heard of this. I do not think this is even a thing in Germany.
I have two friends who are vets. One of them owns two outdoor cats. Never asked them what they think about this.
Imho the choice to keep a cat indoors or outdoors often reflects the character of the owner. People who are more fearful in general, of the world, of their wellbeing, of things that could go wrong, tend to be over protective. Of children, pets, themselves, etc.
As such: it is probably no coincidence to read misconceptions like yours in the age of helicopter parents. Beers!
Generally speaking declawing is illegal in the EU, per: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Convention_for_the_Pr...
and particularly in Germany and a few other countries it is considered "cruelty against animals " (unless if performed for medical reasons)in local laws also:
Very rarely, a cat is run over by a car, but by far most cats seem to be smart enough to avoid cars (and human drivers also usually seem to be smart enough to avoid running over cats by driving somewhat responsibly).
i should note that these swiss cat ladders were a partial inspiration, having run across a similar article a few years ago.
Of course in my country they're more for keeping out the next-door neighbour's cat than foxes or skunks.
We have 1 cat that is "internal" i.e. can enter the house (and is normally given food inside) but of course is free to go outside in the garden and 3 cats that are "outdoor" cats, meaning they won't enter the house but are always around the house and are fed as well (outside).
I think this is because Swiss cities are fairly small and fairly green. There are plenty of places birds can go that are safe from cats and other predators and a forest is never far away.
[1]not to mention the wild cats native to Europe, although of course in far smaller numbers.
That's exactly opposite of my experience - my mum has two cats that only live outside and I'd say that on average they bring at least 2-3 birds every week + 4-5 mice. Them hunting rodents is great, the birds not so much.
birds have adapted
I wonder, if the “common wisdom” of cats really catching and killing so many birds really is true?
Every time I would go down there, she would kill birds, usually right near me. I could sit on the patio and I'd hear a scuffle and next thing I know there she is with a bird in her mouth. She'd present it to me by leaving it at my feet for a bit, then she'd pick it up and either play with it for a bit or just start eating it. She'd eat the thing whole: feathers, beak, bones and all. Sometimes this would happen multiple times in a week (and if we weren't around when she did it, she'd leave it out until we saw it, then eat it). I can only imagine how many she'd get when we weren't around.
Back in my parents' house we also had a cat, he'd catch a bird on occasion but it'd be our neighbour's pigeons that had just come back from a flight from France.
We put a bell on our cat after that - although at the moment she's only being allowed out in the mornings just in case someone with Covid pets her and she brings it in on her fur.
Cats have a fascinating territorial timeshare system. We have outdoor cams set up and there's steady cat traffic along the main garden path at all hours, often with one cat stalking another just out of sight - with occasional face-offs and mewling matches to claim a new slot.
He has managed to kill two birds over a few summers. There are no bird feeders or anything a bird would want on the deck, cats are just very good at killing things.
The corvids like to hang out on the utility wires near the deck and yell at my cat, he doesn’t mind too much hehe.
Source: my parents cat caught a lot of birds. Also I think Catchwatching by Desmond Morris.
Whenever a predator kills a bird there will be traces such as a bunch of feathers and inedible parts at the location of the kill and/or consumption. Never seen a single one of those.
It is a single estimate, never replicated.
There are hundreds of starlings, tits, and other small birds in my neighbourhood. It’s not like birds are a scarce resource. Nether do they seem especially held back by the local cats.
When my family lived in Hugo MN (north of St. Paul), we regularly saw feathers and other remains left by our cats. Occasionally they would leave a bird (or mouse) half dead on our kitchen floor... as an offering? Note that cats might not leave a lot of remains when they hunt, and the sometimes hide the parts they do leave.
Also, while our cats regularly hunted birds, the local blue jays liked to hunt our cats... for sport. The would send one bird out at one end of the yard as bait, and wait for the cat to start hunting it, creeping slowly towards the bird. Then another bird (or several) would suddenly dive bomb it from behind, dropping 20-25 feet strait into the cat's rear end. Our cat would end up launched (and/or leaping) 6+ feet in the air.
The cats I own and had over the past decades have gifted me hundreds of dead of half dead animals. Some of those cats were prolific killers.
I never witnessed a successful bird hunt, never received a bird as a gift. And most importantly: If there is any single animal which can easily leave traces of inedible stuff like feathers, down, beaks, claws — it’s birds. I never even have found traces of a killed bird, on the ground or in scat.
Despite this, I have no doubt cats kill a lot of birds. It’s just that a lone study with p<0.1 (rather than the classic p<0.05) is so far removed the reality I actually observe I can’t help but to have my doubts.
Given that both cats and songbirds have been around for much longer than suburban lifestyles, could the flatness of nothing-but-Kentucky-Bluegrass lawns be to blame?
Plus, it helps control the mouse population as well.
Cats in the UK kill a lot of birds. But they are well, well behind habitat destruction as a cause for decline of bird populations.
Welcome to Switzerland, the origin of the Swiss army knife :)