the basic facts:
Cats that are outdoors seem kill a lot of other animals.
Sometimes they bring them home, sometimes they do not.
Estimates suggest massive 10^6 − 10^9 sort of numbers of animals being killed.
If you are sure that your cats never leave the house and never have a chance to eat animals, that’s fine, I am still suspicious, what about birds near windows?
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I have first-hand anec-data about the seriousness of toxoplasmosis.
Having said all this I definitely have a personal preference for liking dogs over cats. As a separate point I prefer the psychology of dogs to that of cats where dogs are happier, and cats are temperamental at times (not counting for variations in both dogs and cats where either can be happy and either can be temperamental)
None of these sources are about indoor cats. They are all about feral or indoor-outdoor cats.
I did find a study about the prevalence of toxo in Polish indoor cats, which was 19% if they were not fed raw meat. A study on “indoor” cats in Rhode Island animal shelters found 26% had toxo. That last one seems a bit odd, because you don’t know much about the history of a cat at a shelter. A lot of cat adoption places make you promise to keep the cat indoors, but they have no way of checking, so people returning an unwanted cat to a shelter may claim to have kept their promise even if they didn’t. In any case, no indication of whether these cats got toxo while they were indoor cats, or for example while kittens with a different owner.
I would feel more comfortable without cats, but since they belong to my housemates they’re not my choice. Luckily one is blind and the other seems pretty incompetent (the cats, not the housemates).
Yes it seems like cats are less bad than I already registered. Most of my argument rests on me also not liking cats. Glad the information has been shared.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_behavior suggests that cat behaviour is to escape or try to do so.
some sources of cats damaging wildlife: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/pets/9462354/Cats-killing-more-wildlife-than-previously-thought.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/pets/9307745/CatCam-could-vindicate-pets-accused-of-killing-birds.html http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/01/29/170600655/behind-cute-face-a-cold-blooded-killer-study-finds-cats-kill-billions-of-animals
papers: http://www.kittycams.uga.edu/research.html http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n1/full/ncomms2380.html
a fact-check on some information: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-13/greg-hunt-feral-cat-native-animals-fact-check/5858282 which is hilarious and embarrassing and evidence that chain-of-whispers is very real.
a source that is biased: http://www.australianwildlife.org/media/27964/AWC-Wildlife-Matters-Summer-2012-2013.pdf
a good summary of multiple sides of some studies: http://members.iinet.net.au/~rabbit/catdeb.htm
the basic facts: Cats that are outdoors seem kill a lot of other animals. Sometimes they bring them home, sometimes they do not. Estimates suggest massive 10^6 − 10^9 sort of numbers of animals being killed. If you are sure that your cats never leave the house and never have a chance to eat animals, that’s fine, I am still suspicious, what about birds near windows?
-- I have first-hand anec-data about the seriousness of toxoplasmosis.
Having said all this I definitely have a personal preference for liking dogs over cats. As a separate point I prefer the psychology of dogs to that of cats where dogs are happier, and cats are temperamental at times (not counting for variations in both dogs and cats where either can be happy and either can be temperamental)
None of these sources are about indoor cats. They are all about feral or indoor-outdoor cats.
I did find a study about the prevalence of toxo in Polish indoor cats, which was 19% if they were not fed raw meat. A study on “indoor” cats in Rhode Island animal shelters found 26% had toxo. That last one seems a bit odd, because you don’t know much about the history of a cat at a shelter. A lot of cat adoption places make you promise to keep the cat indoors, but they have no way of checking, so people returning an unwanted cat to a shelter may claim to have kept their promise even if they didn’t. In any case, no indication of whether these cats got toxo while they were indoor cats, or for example while kittens with a different owner.
I would feel more comfortable without cats, but since they belong to my housemates they’re not my choice. Luckily one is blind and the other seems pretty incompetent (the cats, not the housemates).
Yes it seems like cats are less bad than I already registered. Most of my argument rests on me also not liking cats. Glad the information has been shared.