The question of whether to keep cats indoors or allow outdoor access involves genuine welfare tradeoffs between safety risks and behavioral enrichment that evidence can help navigate.
The outdoor versus indoor debate involves genuine competing welfare considerations. Outdoor cats experience greater behavioral freedom but face significant mortality risks and cause substantial harm to wildlife. Indoor cats are safer and cause no wildlife harm but face enrichment and behavioral challenges that, if unaddressed, cause real welfare harm through boredom and frustration. The framing as a binary choice misses the most welfare-positive middle ground: providing indoor cats with rich environmental enrichment, catio access, and supervised outdoor time significantly improves their welfare while minimizing both safety and wildlife impact risks. Responsible cat ownership in most urban and suburban environments is most compatible with a managed indoor-with-enrichment approach.