Is it time to end cats’ right to roam?
There is an elaborate bird rescue mission under way in the town of Walldorf. As one of the last homes of the ground-nesting crested lark in Germany, the local district is eager to protect their three remaining breeding pairs. Consequently, they have ordered residents to lock their cats indoors over the summer for the next three years, or face hefty fines: €500 (£420) if a cat is caught outside; €50,000 if it takes an endangered lark.
“I’m really glad that’s happening,” says Peter P Marra, an ecologist at Georgetown University in the US and one of the authors of the 2016 book Cat Wars: The Devastating Consequences of a Cuddly Killer. This kind of policy is the right approach, he says, “but we shouldn’t wait until it’s down to a few individual birds.” In his opinion, no domestic cats should be out in the environment, anywhere.
In the US, the debate about free-roaming cats has been raging for years. Marra’s own work has shown that cats – mostly feral but also pets – kill every year. And while it’s by perceived risks from coyotes now keep their cats inside, up from in the late 1990s.
