Outdoor cats kill billions of wild animals annually. Managing this impact protects wildlife welfare while maintaining cat welfare through outdoor access.
Cat outdoor hunting creates a welfare conflict: the welfare of individual cats who benefit from outdoor access versus the welfare of wild birds and mammals they kill. The scale of the impact — potentially billions of wild animals annually in the US alone — means the cumulative welfare cost on wildlife is enormous, even if individual wildlife deaths are less visible than concentrated animal suffering in farming. Managing this conflict requires neither total indoor confinement nor unrestricted outdoor access, but graduated approaches that maintain some outdoor experience while reducing hunting impact. Time restrictions (keeping cats in at dawn, dusk, and night when hunting is most effective), use of hunting-reduction equipment, and catios that provide outdoor experience without free-roaming all reduce wildlife welfare impact while maintaining some of the outdoor cat's welfare benefits.