In Australia cats are losing the PR war in regional areas.
Its not uncommon for towns to have cat-free policies, or cat enclosures.
Occasionally people float the idea of domesticating quolls or other native animals. I like this idea but not sure whether it's feasible.
In Spain there is chaos regarding cat colonies. We don't know how many there are, how many cats, how many people pouring food... But we make laws protecting cat colonies and forbidding you from feeding birds because it could cause a rise in pests like rats and cockroaches. Like those are not eating cat food smh.
So I have zero hopes regarding this topic.
so i know house cats being let outdoors is a huge issue and owners should be made aware of this - many may not realize the gravity of their decision. i think, however, going after feral cat populations may have the most significant effect. you could look for trap-neuter-return programs in your area and support those efforts. it isn't the instant results you may be looking for, but i think it's probably the most humane response likely to show positive long-term results outside of finding a program that puts the cats into a sanctuary (trap-neuter-remove). while this would be preferable, those programs seem much rarer.
otherwise, on an individual level, assuming you are a home owner, you could create feeding areas that are safe for birds - fenced off from cats with shrubbery and/or dead hedges for added safety.
and while you're at it, don't forget to make homes bird-friendly by addressing outdoor lighting and windows so birds can safely migrate and avoid window collisions.
bird friendly homes | u.s. fish and wildlife service
anyway, that's my two cents. interested in any other ideas yall may have.
I don't let my cats outside except under the controlled environment of a screened-in "catio", where birds can't go. Your statement of "cat owners just won't be stopped unless laws are introduced" is false: with education and awareness, cat owners can and do realise that cat impacts on bird populations are significant, and worth doing their part to prevent as much as they can.
I lived in California for a few years, in the San Francisco area. The maority of cats are perfectly content and happy indoor cats. Several friends had cats which never went outside. Two reasons for this:
The mild climate means the outside has high densities of ticks and fleas. Let your cat wander and it will come back infested.
Racoons are common, even in built up areas, and racoons are partial to a tasty cat. Let your cat wander and there's a good chance it won't come back.
The point being that cats, if brought from kittens, happily live as indoors only pets.
New Zealand has recognised that domestic cats are a menance to native wildlife and now plan to erradicate completely feral cats:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/24/new-zealand-to-eradicate-feral-cats-by-2050
There is also discussion about requiring all pet cats to be microchipped and neutered.
A few years ago, I was in Spain, in one of the Natural Parks looking for Wild Cats, which we did see. I asked a ranger about problems with interbreeding with domestic cats. The rule is that within the Natural Park, any domestic cat seen more than 100 metres from habitation can be shot. Residents know this and make sure their pet cats don't stray.
So, certainly Spain and New Zealand fully recognise what a threat domestic cats are to wildlife. Time the UK acted as well.
cats aren't allowed outdoors at night where I live, so I just set up traps at night time.
How do you know they've got rabies?
from the rabid feline killers?
Sure. I've also heard they do satanical rituals and that's a fact: the cousin of the neighbor of the postman once told that to my late grandmother.
This has grown into a full-blown diss battle shitshow between "cat mums" and the "cat mum haters" in South Korea and while it has been an issue online for many years, I'm just so worn out from the sheer stupidity of this situation. A disproportionate number of people on the "cat mum" side refuse to think critically and modify their behaviour. The ones who should maintain the least amount of dignity and level-headedness possible during the worst times to still educate the "uneducatable" also gave up any cordiality left in them and hate on cat mums for the sake of it. The worst thing, though, is that this is not just limited to one specific country. I can guarantee you will be met with pure madness in the YouTube comment section for any bird documentary showing predation by cats. It's universal and sees no end.
This has led nowhere so far and only created more tension between the public majority who unconditionally love and will protect cats at all costs (generalised as "cat mums") and the non-feline animal lovers (bird lovers in particular) who are all just lazily grouped into the "cat mum hater" category.
I read briefly about the efficacy of TNR programmes somewhere and found that it was still unclear for the most part whether it was actually effective in controlling feral cat populations without adoption of neutered cats. There are suggestions that TNR must be coupled with adoption in order to be successful in what it is meant to achieve. So I personally think TNR is a good place to start investing in, but it's never going to be a definite solution.
The simplest and probably the right thing to do is to encourage everyone to adopt stray cats, stop breeding them, and keep them inside where they belong (they're 'house cats' after all). But guess what people are inclined to do? The opposite of all three.
Will there ever be a universally accepted, humane solution for this problem? Will people ever accept that feral cats destroying ecosystems is not 'nature taking its course'? Will they ever be willing to take accountability for what their ancestors have done despite not having directly contributed to the act of introducing cats to their non-native habitat many centuries ago?
We have a long, long way to go, and we might not even get there before the full damage is done.
To add: Hatred is never the answer. I'm not too fond of cats (or dogs) myself, but I feel this is similar to how others must feel about other invasive animals like starlings and escaped parrots. A lot of the aforementioned "cat mum haters" are seemingly obsessed with the observation that cats "kill for fun" and thus should be exterminated. Again, this only fosters more hatred and will lead nowhere. Hatred is a self-defensive emotion designed to protect you from the mental repercussions of having your values contradicted or violated. Even so, it's more likely than not to also be harmful to oneself. In the end, it doesn't shield, it only stabs. If you think we are justified to hate cats for their impact on the environment and endangered birds, then we may as well be justified to hate on house sparrows and house finches (in East US) for their impact on native bird populations. Violence is bound to create problems, never solutions.
I drive them away whenever I see them hanging around our place. Found out after they moved that one of our neighbors was trying to befriend them. We found a homemade cat shelter she'd put out back right beside my bird feeder.
There was an NPR story one time about how a poisonous toad that had been introduced to an area was causing mass mortality events for crocodiles and other predators.
The solution was to take out the poison from toads, inject them with a compound that makes the crocodiles nauseous, and then set them up as bait for the crocodiles. The crocodiles then learned not to eat the toads.
Of course, any sort of attempt with a similar method should be cleared with your local government. It's not something that some vigilantes should be trying to handle alone without the proper guidance, safety, and approvals in place.
Humans are much bigger bird killers than cats. Cats are nothing in the scheme of things. So what are we going to do about it?
Well if you’re in the UK then the answer would be fuck all. Get over it.
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