With over 50,000 felines now calling the Northern Beaches home, expert advice is clear: keeping your feline indoors is one of the best ways to protect their safety, local wildlife and community wellbeing.

If you’re a cat owner, it’s natural to want to let them roam freely outside and even think that it’s good for them, but evidence shows the opposite can be true. 

It’s a dangerous world out there if you’re furry and feline. Here’s  why veterinarians and animal experts are urging cat owners to rethink outdoor roaming. 

Safety

Car accidents, dog attack, fights with neighbourhood cats and poisonings and traps, all add up to make life outside home deadly for cats.  Plus domestic cats can get lost and never find their way back. A roaming cat’s life expectancy is a quarter of that of an indoor cat.  

Wildlife

Just because your cat purrs and cuddles you at home, doesn’t stop its natural predatory instinct.  Even if your pet doesn’t bring wildlife home, it’s no guarantee of innocence.  A roaming pet cat kills on average 186 native animals such as birds, reptiles and small mammals each year. 

Cats are responsible for most of Australia's 34 mammal extinctions since 1788 and threaten at least 123 other species.

Health

Outdoor cats are at more risk of disease and injuries.  An encounter with a poisonous snake, worm-ridden stray or tick-infested reserve can mean your cat falls prey to sickness or injury and that can mean a costly visit to the vet and an unsafe future.

Alley cats

Roaming cats can spread diseases that affect humans, such as toxoplasmosis which can require hospital treatment. Spraying tom cats and warring cats in a neighbourhood can cause noise and nuisance.

Better in than out

Properly cared-for indoor cats can be healthy and content.  Install climbing structures, build contained outdoor spaces, free up windows and perches and give your cat plenty of cuddles, and you can extend their life by many years.

To keep your furry friend safe and healthy, remember outside is risky and indoors is safe; the longest-living cats simply don’t roam.

For more info on keeping cats visit our website.