Catios (enclosed outdoor spaces for cats) provide the welfare benefits of outdoor access without the mortality and conservation risks of free-roaming, and can be designed for any space.
Catios represent perhaps the optimal solution to the indoor-outdoor welfare dilemma for cats in many environments. They provide the sensory richness of outdoor access — birdsong, fresh air, grass, soil scents, varied temperatures — while eliminating the primary welfare risks of free roaming: road traffic, predators, and disease. For cats, the experience is genuinely enriching: access to a catio with plants, perches, and wildlife visibility provides environmental complexity that purely indoor environments cannot replicate. For wildlife, the catio eliminates predation pressure from a cat that would otherwise hunt birds and small mammals. Both welfare goals are advanced simultaneously.