Outdoor & Indoor/Outdoor cats.
I guess I would like to preface this with saying, I am not totally and completely against outdoor cats. Shelters will often have a host of cats that don't do well inside, like cats that grew up outdoors or cats with incontinence or cats that are very easily over-stimulated, or semi-feral. Without people willing to keep them indoors/outdoors or outdoors only, they would be euthanized.
However, I do believe that if you're getting a new cat you should test out keeping it indoors first. And I believe kittens should absolutely be kept indoors. For a multitude of reasons;
1) Cat health. You already know cats get hit by cars, eaten by wild animals (or other pet animals), get into fights with other cats, and contract lethal and incurable diseases. But do you know at what rate? Because it probably seems like a far off issue if it didn't happen to you.
The National Traffic Safety Administration reports roughly 5.4 million cats are struck by cars a year. 97% of those cats do not survive the incident. There are probably many more that are not reported.
According to the Humane Society of America, out of the 22,000 cats that entered their system and had a non-live outcome, the most common reason was FeLV. Even among indoor pet cats, it is estimated 3-5% have FeLV; the rate for outdoor cats is suspected to be much higher. Cats with FeLV are not expected to live past 3y
Estimated 4% of cats in the US are suspected to have FIV - 75% of FIV+ cats are males. FIV positive cats usually present as normal, until the autoimmune system starts causing havoc or a normal URI turns into a deadly situation. After infection, the median lifespan is 5y.
There is no way to even guess how many cats are killed by dogs, cats, other domestics, wildlife, or people, because the vast majority of the time the body will not be found. However, if you look at lost animal statistics, one study found that 34% of cats went missing and was never found, with 2% being found dead. When entering shelters, cats have between 1.5-5% chance to be returned to owner.
Which brings me to 2) Wildlife. Not only are cats sometimes the sole or main factor for a species being endangered, they are sometimes the sole reason a species goes entirely extinct. It is estimated that cats will kill 1.3 - 4.0 billion birds and 6.3 - 22.3 billion mammals every year in the united states. Based on one study, cats were found to bring home less than a quarter of the animals they kill, and one study found they will only eat 30% of prey killed. Also cats get a variety of wonderful butt worms from eating wildlife.
Cats also fuck up our major flagstone species as well; They can spread their diseases to Bobcats and Catamounts and other big cats via indirect contact with saliva. Cat shit can spread toxoplasmosis into waterways and affect frogs, toads, turtles, reptiles, and even fish. Cats actually caused a toxo outbreak in some sealions in california, which kills it rapidly. Toxo can infect bears, deer, moose, bison, marine mammals, marsupials, small mammals, and even birds. They're fucking up primates in south America currently too.
And not as common, but domestic cats also hybridize with excessively rare wild cats like the european wildcat, which used to have populations in England, Germany, Scotland, Switzerland, and France. They are NOT just feral domestic cats, they evolved parallel to the domestic cat, but IIRC I think they are more or less extinct and all hybridized.
The Humane Society of America reports that 93% of owners that let cats free roam will lose at least one cat outside. That rings true for me as I've lost both of my indoor/outdoor cats due to letting them free roam.
I get it if you already have an indoor/outdoor or outdoor only cat. Or you get a cat that's half wild, or doesn't use the litterbox, etc. I'd prefer a cat have a home than be euthanized at the pound. But I am asking that you maybe just consider keeping your next cat indoors, maybe with supervised outdoor access
