Outdoor cats face significant mortality risks from road traffic, predators, and disease, requiring owner awareness and mitigation strategies to reduce preventable welfare losses.
The outdoor risk profile for cats creates a welfare tension between the behavioral enrichment of outdoor access and the mortality and injury risks of the outdoor environment. The significantly shorter average lifespan of outdoor cats reflects the cumulative welfare cost of road traffic and other hazards. Graduated risk management approaches including curfews, reflective collars, and outdoor enclosures reduce mortality risk while maintaining some outdoor benefit. The welfare comparison between enriched indoor environments and outdoor access with mortality risk is genuinely complex and varies by individual cat and local environment.