#10 – Can We Save Cats and Wildlife? The Outdoor Cat Dilemma.

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[00:00:00] Griff Griffith: I was just 12 years old when I first started volunteering at the Suisun Wildlife Care Center. At that time it was in a dilapidated old white house in an otherwise abandoned block and it always smelled of barn, bleach, and thawing fish. I was volunteering there to help care for injured and orphaned wildlife.

[00:00:19] At the start of each shift, I’d check on the new arrivals, celebrate those who were released, and mourn those who didn’t make it. Over time, I noticed a pattern. Many of our patients were victims of cats.

[00:00:32] Growing up, my family didn’t have cats. My dad was allergic . But I knew they were skilled hunters. Their mix of curiosity and stealth made them expert stalkers. Their sharp eyes finely tuned to catch the slightest movement and their silent, padded footsteps gave them an edge.

[00:00:48] Combine that with lightning fast reflexes and you get a predator perfectly adapted to the hunt. In fact, like all cats, they are obligate carnivores.

[00:00:56] That means they must eat meat to survive. But I had no idea about the sheer number and diversity of their prey.

[00:01:04] Snakes, lizards, and countless birds were brought in by compassionate cat owners hoping to save the gifts their pets had delivered. Most didn’t survive.

[00:01:15] A decade later, while in college, I adopted a black and white feral kitten. I named her MeowMeow. And boy, was she cute. And I thought it’d be fun to let her roam the trailer park where I lived. Quickly thereafter, cats became my absolute favorite animal. They weren’t as needy as dogs, but they still made excellent play and cuddle partners.

[00:01:35] And I want to repeat that I love cats, because today’s topic can be a bit hard to hear if you’re a cat lover like me. From my time at the Suisun Wildlife Care Center, I knew that cats were gonna be cats. Like I said before, they must eat meat to survive. So all of their instincts and capabilities evolved to support this lifestyle. So to minimize Meow Meow’s impact on wildlife, I only let her out during the day.

[00:02:01] Afterall, what wildlife could a trailer park possibly have? I figured the odd English sparrow might be the worst of it. But I was wrong. One day she brought home a yellow warbler. Weeks later, it was a blue bellied lizard. I hadn’t even known they were there. Then came the big surprises, a gopher snake. And then, our state bird, the California quail.

[00:02:24] I tried keeping her indoors, but her relentless yowling made me feel so guilty. I thought I could make her less stealthy with a bright collar. It didn’t work. By the fourth trip to the wildlife care center, I realized these casualties were just a fraction of Meow Meow’s true victim count.

[00:02:41] Mike Armer: They’re perfect little killing machines.

[00:02:43] Griff Griffith: That’s Mike Armer.

[00:02:45] Mike Armer: I’m a small animal veterinarian, so 99 percent of what we see is cats and dogs.

[00:02:50] Griff Griffith: And like everyone in this episode, Mike is also a cat owner and cares deeply for cats. Even our producer, Michael Hawk, cares for three cats in his home.

[00:02:59] It’s estimated that there are around 60 million pet cats in the United States, and about one quarter of households own at least one cat. And there are as many as 60 to 100 million stray and feral cats. That’s 120 to 160 million cats in total in the United States.

[00:03:16] Obviously it’s hard to census stray and feral cats, and many sources imply that these numbers may be underestimated.

[00:03:22] Allison Fluty: I would say the thing that always surprises me, is the number of cats that will be at a place versus the number of cats that someone has reported. For example, the, there was one big colony that I was working with for a while, It initially started with just one person asking for help near her work.

[00:03:42] Which was up against a creek and she was worried about the cats that were around there. She said, there’s probably like 20 cats and there’s a lot of coyotes around there. She wanted to see if someone can help. , There was more like a hundred cats in that, that whole area. and. It’s the same thing no matter where you go, you know, it’s just the proportions.

[00:04:05] It’s usually like five times more cats than are reported. If I go to a house and they say, I think there’s, you know, four or five cats, it’s like, okay, there could be 15 to 20.

[00:04:15] Griff Griffith: Alison Fluty, who you just heard from is perhaps the ultimate cat lover. She educates the community about outdoor cats and volunteers with a TNR organization in multiple capacities.

[00:04:26] What’s TNR? We’ll come back to that in a moment. But it does not take a mathematician to realize the impact 100 million cats have on wild animals and our ecosystems.

[00:04:36] Mike Armer: Cats are not a wild species. These are a domesticated animal, and so these aren’t ever found in nature. definitely seen a lot of different studies estimating,

[00:04:53] how many animals cats kill, it’s really quite disturbing. The numbers I’ve seen most recently are more than two billion, with a B, birds per year, and more than 12 billion small animals. You know, mice, rats, rabbits, things like that.

[00:05:09] Griff Griffith: Stop and think about those numbers. 14 billion birds and small animals per year killed by outdoor cats, which aren’t even native to our environment. And 100 million outdoor cats, that means there is an incredible density of predators on the landscape, an unnatural density, a density of threat that wild birds and other small animals have never had to contend with before.

[00:05:33] But with 25 percent of American households owning cats and many more caring for outdoor cats, we can make a difference. In fact, what we have to share today might be the most impactful way that you can help biodiversity right after planting native plants, of course.

[00:05:49] I’m Griff Griffith, and welcome to Jumpstart Nature.

[00:06:03] It seems like whenever I bring up the topic of outdoor cats, one of two things happen. People either get really defensive or they get really angry, sometimes both. And it doesn’t matter whether they are conservationists, cat owners, or both.

[00:06:26] Cats trigger polarizing responses in the world of environmental stewardship.

[00:06:31] No matter how you look at it, cats are amazing creatures. They’re independent, yet lovable and loving.

[00:06:37] They are meticulously clean they are stealthy, yet communicate with an incredible diversity of vocalizations and mannerisms.

[00:06:44] They can keep your house or barn free of rodents and help you keep warm at night. And I love getting to know each cat’s personality. Some are playful. Others just love to cuddle. Others are more reclusive. My two cats personalities are so different, it’s almost like they’re two different species of cat. One wakes me up every morning by sitting on my chest and biting my nose. And then as soon as my feet hit the floor, she’s herding me towards the snack jar.

[00:07:09] The other wonders why I live in her house and finds little use for me besides filling her food dish. I love them both.

[00:07:15] Our goal today is to approach this hot button topic with an open and compassionate mind. As you know, I’m both a cat lover and a wildlife lover. If you have an outdoor cat now or care for outdoor cats, there are things you can do to help.

[00:07:31] And after your current outdoor cat goes to the great cat tree in the sky, where there’s everlasting supply of catnip, you can make a pledge that your next feline best friend will be indoors only.

[00:07:42] And speaking of cat compassion, one of the first things I think about is being compassionate for my cat’s health.

[00:07:48] Mike Armer: Indoor cats have been shown time and time again to have longer, healthier lives. The average lifespan for an indoor cat is in the 10 to 15 year range. The average lifespan for an outdoor cat is only two to five years. So there’s a huge difference there. And that’s just lifespan. Quality of life, um, I believe is better for indoor cats.

[00:08:08] They’re far less likely to get sick. They’re far less likely to have significant wounds. It really is a huge difference.

[00:08:16] Outdoor cats, are prone to some infectious diseases, feline leukemia virus. Feline Immunodeficiency Virus, which is cat AIDS. There are others as well. Toxoplasmosis, I know you want to talk about that in a little bit. Wounds, so cats get into fights with other cats. They get attacked by wild animals.

[00:08:38] Raccoons, things like that. Dogs will attack cats when they’re outside. And it’s unfortunately not uncommon for cats to get hit by cars, and that’s almost always a fatal interaction.

[00:08:49] Griff Griffith: Wow. Being an outdoor cat cuts eight to 10 years from their life. And it’s a hard life. That’s for sure.

[00:08:56] Mike Armer: I would say most people have some sense that keeping a cat indoors is better for them and better for the environment. I don’t think very many people have a sense of how extreme the difference is for the cats and for the wildlife.

[00:09:14] Griff Griffith: How do all these cats get outdoors anyway? Well, it’s a combination of things. Sometimes cats are simply allowed to roam free by their owners. Cats might escape , or get lost, or be left behind by owners who are unable to care for them. Just like with other pets, sometimess well meaning owners drop their cats off in natural areas thinking that it’s the best solution. That’s actually how I got my first cat, Meow Meow. She was the daughter of some cats that were dropped off in a city park.

[00:09:41] those abandoned cats aren’t spayed and neutered, then they can, and probably will, start having kittens.

[00:09:48] Each cat litter can have as many as six kittens in it, and those kittens are mature enough to have kittens of their own by the time they’re four to six months old.

[00:09:56] Once there are a few cats in an area, a mature female can have anywhere from two to five litters a year. Well, that’s a lot of numbers, so I’ll do the math for you. A mature female can have as many as 8 to nearly 30 kittens per year.

[00:10:12] You can see how populations can explode this way, and you can see why animals like coyotes might be attracted to these cat colonies.

[00:10:22] You may have heard terms like feral, stray, or community cats, so let’s take a moment to get these terms straight .

[00:10:28] Community cats encompass all free roaming cats, whereas feral represents cats that have little or no human contact. Feral cats tend to fear people and hide and can rarely be socialized That means they usually can’t be adopted.

[00:10:42] Stray cats are typically former pets, so they may be more approachable.

[00:10:46] The reason why these classifications are important is because they remind us that it’s not as simple as just catching an outdoor cat and then adopting it out to a new owner.

[00:10:55] And regardless, there are way too many outdoor cats for shelters and adoption services to handle. Not to mention people willing to adopt them. That’s not to say that adoption isn’t helpful. It certainly can be a piece of the puzzle to solve our cat problems.

[00:11:09] How do stray and feral cats get taken in and adopted out? Very often this process begins through TNR groups.

[00:11:17] Allison Fluty: TNR stands for trap, neuter, and return. Basically trapping a cat, neutering or spaying them, and then returning them to where they came from.

[00:11:26] Griff Griffith: TNR, on the surface, sounds pretty simple , but remember what Allison said earlier?

[00:11:31] Allison Fluty: It’s usually like five times more cats than are reported. You know, if I go to a house and they say, I think there’s, four or five cats, it’s like, okay, there could be 15 to 20.

[00:11:41] Griff Griffith: And Mike Armer adds another wrinkle.

[00:11:43] Mike Armer: From my understanding, TNR works in select situations, specifically where there is a, um, defined community of cats that doesn’t have new cats coming in from the outside. So rural areas that are isolated and don’t have adjoining towns where cats might be coming over from. It can actually work really well there because you can essentially, with time, catch the entire population.

[00:12:13] In more urban areas or larger areas, it’s virtually impossible to get a sufficient number of them to where it makes a difference. From what I understand.

[00:12:25] Griff Griffith: And that makes sense. If you have a large intermingling population, a one and done TNR effort probably won’t be effective in the long run.

[00:12:33] However, people committed to TNR, like Allison embrace much more than a one time trapping effort. Our producer, Michael Hawk calls it full spectrum TNR.

[00:12:44] Some people will also say that returning cats, which are not native to our ecosystems , is inhumane. They will say that we’re picking winners because those cats will continue to hunt and kill native animals. Others say it is inhumane to not return these unadoptable cats because there are no other viable alternatives. And as we stated before, these outdoor cats live short, hard, and often unhealthy lives.

[00:13:10] As you can see, there are no ideal solutions here. But this is where we are in 2025. Facing a situation, where there are millions of free roaming outdoor cats, supported by millions of cat lovers, pitted against wildlife lovers who want to eradicate the cats from the landscape.

[00:13:28] If I could snap my fingers and solve this, I would. But until I gain those magical powers, we have to work with what we have.

[00:13:35] And part of the problem with TNR is that many past TNR efforts have not been full spectrum.

[00:13:42] But in cases where full spectrum processes are embraced, which Allison describes in a moment, it has been successful.

[00:13:49] We’ve linked to a few studies in our show notes. Some of which were done in conjunction with Audubon chapters and bird observatories. One study tracked a population of cats near a city adjacent to the San Francisco Bay. An initial population of 175 cats declined by 99. 4 percent over the 16 year program period. Of the 258 total cats enrolled , only one remained at the end of the program period.

[00:14:17] Allison Fluty: There are a lot of, you know, misunderstandings or why a lot of people think that it just doesn’t work because when you’re doing TNR, you need to get like a hundred percent of the, you want to fix a hundred percent of the is close to a hundred percent. you know, a lot of studies say think like around 80 percent is when you’re going to see, the population start to decline,

[00:14:37] but we always try to do a hundred percent, as close to a hundred percent as possible. And it also requires ongoing management. and so that means that, you know, whoever’s caretaking the cats, the, the feeder, that they’re, feeding responsibly. That’s where a lot of the education comes in again. you know, we tell them don’t just dump food and leave.

[00:14:57] You know, you’re doing it, on a schedule. You’re picking up any uneaten food and taking it with you or throwing it away, and not leaving it out. and that way all the cats in the colony are coming during the times that you’re there and you can monitor them for, any injuries or illness or any new cats that might show up and they’re able to get those cats, and fix them or return them to their owners if they were lost pets

[00:15:21] it is an ongoing thing that requires a lot of education, but if it is done, um, full spectrum, as you say, I like that term, it is successful.

[00:15:29] Griff Griffith: Successful TNR requires getting a handle on the population.

[00:15:33] Allison Fluty: The whole process goes back into like, you have to kind of assess the situation, find out, how many cats are there, find out who’s feeding them.

[00:15:42] A lot of times there’s a lot of different people feeding them that don’t know each other. Provide education to feeders. Depending on the type of area, if it’s like residential, I’ll be going like to all the neighbors houses on the streets and knocking on the doors to ask them if they have outdoor cats or if they’re feeding cats, and leaving flyers if I’m not able to speak to someone in person.

[00:16:14] Using cameras, that we place, they’re kind of like trap cameras. They, they record when it’s, when they sense motion. but you can access them, you know, from an app on your phone. You don’t have to physically get the card out from the camera. All that really is just a, just. to figure out how many cats there are and how many people are feeding them and to get everybody on the same page.

[00:16:34] One of the important things is to establish a routine feeding schedule. You want the cats to be used to eating at one or two times a day. lot of feeders just leave food out and it lets cats come whenever they want. So really shy cats might not show up until 2am or something. There’s a lot of coordination that, that goes into, into that lot of prep before the actual trapping.

[00:17:01] Griff Griffith: Another reason to not leave food out all the time is that you are likely to attract other animals and pests, perhaps roaches, crickets, ants, raccoons, even coyotes.

[00:17:11] Well, meaning people who feed cats take on an extra responsibility as a caretaker, but they don’t always realize this. They need to monitor their feeding stations, clean the stations and ensure that they are not causing more harm. And with this monitoring, people can identify when new cats enter the neighborhood and alert their local TNR group to come back.

[00:17:30] Okay, so when Allison and her TNR group, Bay Area Cats, are engaged, they start with education, establish a feeding schedule, and monitor the population.

[00:17:39] Then it’s time for trapping. Producer Michael tagged along on a recent trap.

[00:17:44] To set the scene, the location is behind a hotel, along a creek, right next to a busy highway in the heart of San Jose, California. After a period of monitoring, Allison assessed that there were 12 to 14 cats, and has been slowly trapping cats over the previous few weeks.

[00:17:59] Allison Fluty: I have two appointments for tomorrow, so I’m going to try to catch two cats. I have my remote control trap, because some of the cats are already fixed. And so, I’m going to selectively trap ones that haven’t been fixed yet. Then transfer it into the other trap so I can use the robo trap again.

[00:18:19] It has this. This battery is connected to a little switch that triggers this actuator, they use them for car doors.

[00:18:30] Griff Griffith: The setup Alison is using is advanced yet. Its design is elegantly simple. Imagine a cage trap that has remote control door triggered by a key fob like what you use to open your car door.

[00:18:41] Allison Fluty: have a little camera that I put out, and then I just kind of sit in my car. And these cats are, they’re not super shy, so I’ve been able to sit, like, right here while they’re eating right here to trap them.

[00:18:54] And then, so this is a Reolink camera and it uses um, a SIM card that I just buy data for.

[00:19:00] Griff Griffith: She aims the camera at the trap and can watch real time video on her phone. This allows her to sit in the car, using it like a blind , so as not to disturb the cats. The cat’s preferred food is set in the trap. if a new cat or a known cat that has not been caught before wanders in, she triggers the trap.

[00:19:15] Allison Fluty: So this is where a lot of the trapping Just Sitting, They’re coming out now, huh?

[00:19:21] My camera is lagging so now I

[00:19:24] can’t tell if the cat that’s going in there tipped or not?

[00:19:28] Griff Griffith: Tipping refers to whether the cat has a small portion of the tip of one of its ears surgically removed, which is a universal sign that this cat has been spayed or neutered. Allison doesn’t wanna re trap a cat that has already been fixed. She watches closely as the cats approach .

[00:19:41] Allison Fluty: Oh, there we go. tell who. I can’t tell who it is. oh, I do need that, that one. So one of the is going in the kitten’s, like probably months old. I’ll get this one Let’s get this ready.

[00:20:10] Griff Griffith: Allison covered the trap to keep the cat calm.

[00:20:13] Allison Fluty: And so, I’m going to transfer into this empty one. You’re okay. Oh, I’m sorry.

[00:20:21] Griff Griffith: Allison had prearranged two appointments in the next morning with a vet that aids in TNR efforts. .

[00:20:32] Appointments take time and cost money for an already overworked veterinary industry. When a vet sees a cat that has been trapped, there are several things that happen.

[00:20:42] Mike Armer: Cats are brought in in a specific type of cage. They are always scared, and they’re tend to be much more aggressive than pet cats. And so, uh, unfortunately we absolutely have to sedate every single one that comes in. And so we’ll sedate them, do an evaluation looking for, fleas and whatnot.

[00:21:02] do the, the neutering process. Um, depending on the exact details of the program, they’re usually given, vaccines, at least the rabies vaccine.

[00:21:12] The surgery depends on whether it’s a male or female. Male cats, are very easy to sterilize. It only takes five minutes. Female cats, it’s more complicated, more technically involved, and so it’s probably, depending on your experience, anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. The whole process from presentation, to going home, probably a minimum of a couple of hours, but, most often it’s a bring the cat in, in the morning, pick it up in the evening type situation. After the neutering process, they get, uh, an ear crop, which is just a little notch out of the ear so that you can very easily from a distance, identify which ones have or have not been spayed or neutered.

[00:21:57] Allison Fluty: Through TNR, you’re also identifying cats that are friendly, and can be adopted, and so they are, you know, getting better lives I know some trappers have, found pets that had been lost for, two or three years and able to return them to their owners .

[00:22:12] , and if an area is, deemed to be too dangerous, for a cat to be returned to, for whatever reason, like if it’s Like a heavy construction site, or, if it’s, an ecologically sensitive area, that’s considered also, and, if it wouldn’t make sense to release the cat there, if or the cat’s going to have, too much of a negative impact on the area,

[00:22:36] , then that’s when they’ll also consider, you know, is this cat a candidate for like a barn cat or a garden cat program? There, there’s a lot more that goes into it than I think a lot of people are aware.

[00:22:48] Griff Griffith: But in light of a nationwide vet shortage, and since much of this work is volunteer driven and time consuming, it doesn’t scale well, but it certainly does work in targeted efforts. Of course, more public funds or donations to humane societies and TNR organizations would really help too.

[00:23:05] So far, we’ve been focused on the harm outdoor cats do to wild animals and how it impacts cat’s health as well. But did you know that outdoor cats can harm people and their owners too?

[00:23:19] Mike Armer: Toxoplasmosis is a parasite, and specifically it’s a protozoal parasite, and it’s pretty common. Cats are considered to be what’s called the definitive host, meaning that’s the host that the parasite can reproduce in and spread, but it actually can affect any warm blooded animal, so that includes humans.

[00:23:41] It is actually spread through the feces of the cat, so the outdoor cat, that’s infected defecates outside, it’s gonna go into the ground, other animals are gonna come along, be exposed to it, , and then it can infect those animals if, say, that was a mouse, and a, um, Wild animal comes along and eats that mouse.

[00:24:02] That other animal is going to most likely get infected as well, and it travels pretty much anywhere. It’s, in, it can spread by water and actually even go out into the ocean. Sea otters were very severely affected by it.

[00:24:15] Toxoplasmosis can cause a whole host of different symptoms. It can affect pretty much any part of the body, liver, intestines, lungs, kidneys, heart, skin, eyes. It even affects the central nervous system and can cause behavior changes in cats and humans as well, actually.

[00:24:35] Griff Griffith: In our Nature’s Archive podcast, episode 102 we discussed Toxoplasmosis with biologist Sophie Osborn as well.

[00:24:43] Sophie Osborn: A growing body of research is showing that the disease might be associated with a variety of mental disorders, including depression, bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, things like that.

[00:24:55] There was a study in Europe where women who had toxoplasmosis were twice as likely to commit suicide as women who didn’t have toxoplasmosis. So it’s seeming like it could be much more harmful to people than we initially realized. It also, in rats, makes them not fearful. It makes them bolder and braver.

[00:25:16] And we’re finding that it has that effect on other animals too. So a lot of animals including people that contract toxoplasmosis are more prone to having accidents and trauma.

[00:25:27] Mike Armer: Pregnant women are the highest risk because it affects the fetus. It can cause abortion or fetal death, but it can affect, you know, anything in the human just like it can in the cat. So one of the more common things in children is that it affects their eyes. can cause vision problems.

[00:25:43]

[00:25:44] Griff Griffith: As a conservationist, I’ve been so focused on how cats might harm the environment that I haven’t even considered toxoplasmosis. And this gets us to the main point. The best solution to the outdoor cat problem is prevention. If you have a new cat, please keep it inside.

[00:26:01] People might let their cats outside simply because that is what they grew up with and are used to, and they haven’t even considered the bigger picture.

[00:26:08] Others feel like letting cats outdoors is the only way to let the cat have a full enriching life. But is this true?

[00:26:14] Mike Armer: There are so, so many different things that you can do to enrich the indoor environment. There are tons of products you can buy. There are many websites devoted to ways you can do that without buying products, and in the end, when you’re spending time trying to make your cat’s life better, it becomes a better relationship with the cat. Absolutely, you can have cats that are completely satisfied and happy, strictly indoors.

[00:26:41] If you can train a cat to be on a leash, kudos to you. They seem to generally be happy and are much less likely to be getting injured, though not 100 percent risk free. are great for protecting wildlife, but they’re not necessarily going to prevent the cat from infectious diseases.

[00:27:01] But they allow the cat to go outdoors, smell the smells, see the sights, all that sort of thing.

[00:27:06] Allison Fluty: Sometimes simple things like just pushing a cat tree up against the window and putting up a, a bird feeder or, Playing with your cat is a of enrichment that’s also really, really important.

[00:27:17] You know, finding what your cat likes to play with. Um, some people will say, oh, my cat doesn’t like to play. There’s so many different toys, you can be creative, just find what, what’s enriching to your cat. You know, sometimes bringing something from outside indoors and letting the cat smell it, scent enrichment is another type of enrichment that exists.

[00:27:38]

[00:27:38] Griff Griffith: Scent enrichment, what a great idea. We tend to look at animals through a human perspective, but many animals rely much more on scent than we do, so give it a try. If you have windows, consider making a pedestal or placing a stand near the window so your cat can look outside.

[00:27:54] And move your cat tree or stand around from time to time to give the cats a new perspective. And just like with kids, periodically take toys away or reintroduce older toys. And of course, new and different shape boxes and bags and containers are perennial favorites.

[00:28:09] If you currently allow your cat outdoors, yes, it might be hard to retrain it to be indoors only. Try limiting the hours you let it out to the least impactful hours.

[00:28:18] And of course, make sure your cat is fixed. If you can’t afford the procedure, there may be organizations that can help.

[00:28:24] And speaking of trying to keep your cat indoors, did you know the bird migration is as predictable as the weather?

[00:28:29] In fact, there is an amazing resource called Bird Cast that shows anticipated migration volumes. So birds tend to migrate only on the best weather nights by keeping your cat indoor during those nights and the 24 hours that follow, you could give those migratory birds a chance. You can sign up to receive local migration alerts from BirdCast. Go to birdcast. info and search for Migration Tools or check our show notes.

[00:28:53] And there are other simple things you can do!

[00:28:56] If you have an outdoor cat today, make a pledge that your next cat will be an indoor cat.

[00:29:01] If you see a lot of outdoor cats in your neighborhood, seek out organizations like Bay Area Cats that come out and do TNR. .

[00:29:08] And remember, if you find kittens, there is only a narrow window in which they can be socialized for adoption. Eight weeks is typically the cutoff, so don’t delay.

[00:29:18] And perhaps you can educate your neighbors? Try online neighbor forums. And remember, most people don’t respond well to lecturing. Perhaps take an approach of, I just learned this and thought you’d like to know too.

[00:29:29]

[00:29:29] Griff Griffith: Unfortunately, progress has been slow or non existent in the overall outdoor cat problem, because too many people take an idealized point of view depending on whether they identify as a conservationist or as cat lovers.

[00:29:41] Allison Fluty: There’s the bird people that are very against the TNR, , and against outdoor cats , and then there’s the, cat people, , who feel, that the bird people are vilifying the cats and, just seems silly to me, you know, that , they kind of make each other out to, be , the villain, but really I’m like, we all kind of have the same, goal.

[00:30:05] We all want cats to be healthy. We all want a healthy environment. We don’t want to see, one animal suffering and the other one thriving. We want, them all to be, safe and healthy. My dream is to bring the birders and the cat people together to realize they’re on the same team.

[00:30:21] Griff Griffith: Sophie Osborn adds:

[00:30:23] Sophie Osborn: And so if each of us does one thing, if you can’t cope with having your cat indoors, maybe keep it in for five days when you think a nest might be hatching or fledging in your home.

[00:30:33] And if, 10 million people keep their cat inside for a week, that’s something more than nothing,

[00:30:40] Griff Griffith: Thankfully, I’ve seen that our listeners are open minded and open to the nuances that are inherent in nature.

[00:30:45] So let’s be part of the same team and help our cats and help biodiversity. In my case, Meow Meow and I moved several times, and I did my best to limit her hunting, but it wasn’t until she was like around 9 that we moved into a place with a tall fence that the killing stopped. And I knew that I’d get another cat someday.

[00:31:03] And I made a silent promise to the dozens, maybe hundreds of birds, lizards and snakes that Meow Meow killed, that my next cat would live indoors.

[00:31:11] Now I have two indoor cats named Mimi and Sister. With toys, cat trees, and a catio, their lives are as safe and stimulating as I can make them, and boy, are they cute. We sleep together every night and they still hunt. But now it’s laser lights and stuffed mice, and no one has to die.

[00:31:29] What did you think of today’s episode? We’d like to hear from you. You can email us at podcast at jumpstartnature. com or leave a comment on one of our social media pages. You can find us on Blue Sky , Facebook, and Instagram at jumpstartnature.

[00:31:46] And please share this episode with three of your friends or groups that you think would benefit from hearing it. A big thanks to Allison Fluty, Dr. Mike Armer and Sophie Osborn for their insights in today’s episode.

[00:31:58] Jumpstartnature. com slash cats has a transcript and full show notes , including links to topics we mentioned and additional resources to help you learn more about outdoor cats.

[00:32:08] Michael Hawk: Jumpstart Nature was created and is produced by me, Michael Hawk.

[00:32:12] Miles Ewell provided sound design and our host is Griff Griffith. Thanks for listening.