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Comment by nessus42 | Hacker News Reader

> Outdoor cats are an invasive species which are destroying the native bird populations

This is certainly true for feral cats, but I'm highly skeptical about this claim being true for owned indoor/outdoor cats.

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You’re right that it’s much worse for feral cats, but pets are also a problem. Here’s a good study that tracked house cats specifically https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/12/world/pet-cats-disrupt-wildli...

> On average, the study found that house cats killed anywhere between 14.2 to 38.9 prey per 100 acres, per year. That averages out to about 3.5 prey each month per cat. The researchers believe this large number is due to the fact that neighborhoods can include a high density of cats -- more so than wild predators living in the wild.

The RSPB in the UK found no evidence of cats causing the decline and attributes it to a decline in habitat.

[1] https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/gardening-...

The RSPB still recommends keeping cats indoor during times of avian vulnerability, and that study does not estimate dead birds that are not specifically brought home by cats or those that might have been injured.

I have seen more claims of negative impact, or that it impacts ecological systems negatively.

But I still think the bird angle is the wrong one to focus on in discouraging free range household cats.

https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/seven-simple-actions-to-h...

"Prey". Well that's a pretty generic term. Perhaps much of this "prey" are the mice that are a danger to bumblebees.

The challenge is that so long as “indoor / outdoor” or “outdoor” cats as pets is a normalized and common concept, it will be difficult to limit the populations of stray and feral cats.

You can see a similar impact in cities / countries that allow unsupervised dogs to run around. There are many strays.

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