Feral and free-roaming cats on islands have caused some of the most severe wildlife extinctions ever recorded. Managing this conflict raises difficult welfare trade-offs between cats and native species.
The conflict between feral cat welfare and native prey welfare has no easy resolution. Individual cats are sentient animals capable of suffering. But so are the millions of birds, lizards, and mammals they kill each year — often species found nowhere else on Earth. Trap-Neuter-Return, while reducing cat suffering, does not eliminate predation on wildlife populations already at the edge of extinction. Island eradications, though lethal, have produced measurable conservation and welfare benefits for native species. Welfare ethics in this context require weighing the suffering of all affected animals, not just the most visible ones.