How catios and enclosed outdoor spaces provide the welfare benefits of outdoor access while protecting cats and wildlife.
Catios represent a practical resolution to the welfare dilemma posed by indoor-only cat keeping: providing the sensory stimulation, fresh air, and natural experience of outdoor access while protecting the cat from the significant mortality and injury risks of unsupervised outdoor access and protecting wildlife from domestic cat predation. Well-designed catios provide cats with views of gardens, access to fresh air, opportunities to watch birds and wildlife from safety, and surfaces for climbing, scratching, and sunbathing. These environmental features address many of the behavioral deprivation problems associated with purely indoor living. The wildlife conservation benefit of enclosed cat access is also significant: even one cat with outdoor access causes meaningful wildlife mortality over a lifetime, and catios eliminate this impact entirely while maintaining the cat quality of life.