Study finds you should keep your cats inside for the sake of their health and the surrounding environment

The next time you let your cat out for a walk, you might want to rethink. The outdoors is a bad place for a cat. The uncontrollable drive to hunt and kill wildlife has been shown to reduce native animal populations.

According to a new study by the University of Maryland, keeping cats indoors can reduce the risks. Data from the D.C. Cat Count was used in the analysis.

Researchers were able to understand why cats and other wildlife are present in some areas, but not others, thanks to the cameras that recorded what cats preyed on. The paper was published in the journal Frontiers in ecology and evolution.

The average domestic cat in D.C. is more likely to be found in the same area as racoons and red foxes than Virginia opossums. Allowing our cats to be outside is putting their health at risk.

In addition to the risk of being exposed to diseases that they can bring indoors to the humans in their families, outdoor cats are also threatening native wildlife. According to the D.C. Cat Count survey, cats that are allowed to roam outside also share the same spaces with and hunt small native wildlife. Cats can reduce the amount of animals in the environment.

Many people wrongly think that cats are hunting rats, when in fact they prefer hunting small native species. Cats keep rats out of sight because of fear, but there isn't any evidence that they are controlling the non-native rodents. They are decimating native populations that give benefits to the D.C. environment.

There is a correlation between tree cover and access to open water. The presence of cats decreased with those natural features but increased with human population density The associations run counter to the idea that free-roaming cats are stepping into a natural role in the ecology by hunting wildlife.

The distribution of cats is largely driven by humans, according to an advisor to the professor. Humans dictate the degree of risk these cats encounter and the amount of harm they cause to local wildlife.

Pets should be kept indoors to avoid encounters with native wildlife. His research shows that cats are at risk of contracting diseases and causing native wildlife declines if they are allowed to roam freely.

The spatial and temporal overlap of domestic cats and native urban wildlife has been studied. There is a book titled "10389/fevo.2022.1048585".

Journal information: Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution