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Seven Things You Can Do to Protect Wildlife From Predation By Cats |
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- Keep cats indoors. Keeping cats inside not only prevents them from preying on wildlife, it reduces the chance that they will breed and produce feral cats, which hunt wildlife for food. Keeping cats indoors also helps them stay healthy and live up to five time as long as cats that are left outside.
- Get your cats neutered. Cats have enormous reproductive capacity. By having your cat neutered, you eliminate the possibility that it will produce offspring that might harm wildlife.
- Construct an outdoor enclosure or leash run. If you insist on letting your cat stay outside, make sure it is not able to roam and hunt freely. Confine cats to open outdoor areas where they cannot hide in trees, bushes, and brush to ambush wildlife. Outdoor enclosures and leash runs have been used to successfully prevent cats from leaving the yard where they can harm wildlife and themselves. (Bells, however, are not very effective in protecting wildlife.)
- Create cat-proof feeders, or don’t feed birds or other wild animals. If you feed animals in an area where cats can attack them, you may be luring them to a painful, early death. Make sure any feeders, bird baths, etc., are constructed and located where cats cannot prey on the wildlife that use them.
- Don’t feed stray or feral cats. If you want to care for a cat, keep it indoors. Feeding cats does not reduce their inclination to hunt. Feeding cats other than your own encourages them to wander and reduces a natural check on feral populations that would otherwise decline when prey species decline.
- Ask your neighbors to keep their cats indoors. There is a good chance your neighbors may not know how important it is to keep cats indoors. Share the information you have found here with them, and ask them to be responsible for their feline friends.
- Trap free roaming cats and deliver them to your animal control authority. Most governments in the U.S. have laws that allow you to trap dogs and cats that wander onto your property and turn them over to the proper authority. Check with your local Humane Society or other animal control office for advice and, in some cases, free, humane traps that you can use.
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