I’m at a friend’s place and the cat keeps bringing in dead (or half-dead) animals into the house. It’s my understanding that cats think we are big, helpless kittens that don’t know how to hunt. Hence, they think they are doing us a favour.
It seems like a few mice actually escaped and found refuge in some walls in the house, so these “presents” are actually more than just annoying (and smelly if the dead animal ends up behind the couch).
Cats outside are an aggressive invasive species in every continent except Africa. I love them but they need to be kept inside, and neutered/spayed. Cats do fine indoors, even ones who have gotten used to going in and out. They may complain but with enrichment and regular play they will get over it. If not, then a catio is a good solution.
The European wild cat exists. Domestic cats may have come from Africa, but cats have been native in Europe for a long time.
This is like saying because there are toads native to Australia, that Cane toads are fine. An invasive species is an invasive species, and is characterized by its spread, reproduction, and harm to the local ecosystem.
I think the problem with domestic cats is not the color of their passport, but the fact they are not subject to pressures limiting predators in the wild.
They have:
a) permanent shelter b) constant access to food
So while others animals are starving and being eaten, the cat just goes out there every day and kills everything it can find, and if it can’t find anything, it goes back and has a full meal, and it does this every day for most of its very long life no matter how much food is available or how cold it gets.
That’s the reason wildcats are not a problem, they have small stable populations and barely interact with humans and domestic cats.
“Modern” Wildcats have been in all of Europe for at least 300k years, so they were just another predator species among many others.
What specific wild cat are you talking about in Europe? Do you mean feral domesticated cats (which are essentially this one small African cat)? Or larger critters like bobcats?
The European wildcat - Felis silvestris.
Interestingly it seems that they avoided interbreeding with domestic cats for over 2k years.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2023-11-06-european-wildcats-avoided-introduced-domestic-cats-2000-years
There is a species of wild cat native to the UK: https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife-explorer/mammals/wildcat
Yes but that’s not the cat people are usually referring to when they say "I have a cat I let outside "