by that logic, humans should stay inside too

Most cats do tend to stay inside the house, or briefly go outside before coming back in again. Some animal-protection org here once published a story about the number of birds killed by cats which worked out to each cat in the country killing something like three birds a day, including all the cats who never go outdoors or who are way to comfortable to ever chase anything more mobile than a food bowl. After that I stopped paying attention to claims about bird numbers.

Not to mention that the cats who aren't too lazy to chase things are far more likely to go for ground-based animals like rats and mice than birds. As in, the rats that would be raiding bird nests if the cats didn't keep their numbers down.

> Cats should stay inside they house

Isn't putting them on a leash, or having them wear a bell around their neck outside, enough for all parties?

For cat lovers, I recommend the film Kedi about the cats of Istanbul.

https://www.kedifilm.com

Bad. There are Pacific islands where birds have become extinct due to cat predation.

In the US, I went to a university (sarcastically referred to as find another university) where the mascot was the burrowing owl. They build nests in the sandy soil in Southern Florida. They are becoming endangered due to feral cats hunting them. And there is always some battle between preservationists and crazy cat lovers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrowing_owl

Cats have a hunting instinct. No matter how well fed, they will continue to hunt. I remember living with a woman who rescued ex-breeder cats, which were all very fat. They still tried hunting lizards even being so fat that their belly hair rubbed off on the carpeting. Cats are not quite as bad as adult raccoons (who will kill every chicken in your coop just to eat one), but are not capable of hunting only what they need to eat.

A prerequisite for there to even be a chance of cats being involved in ecosystem balance would be for the cats to exist purely as part of the ecosystem, as in being exposed to negative feedback effects to it (e.g. starvation due to overhunting). As it stands, they are being fed by humans and mostly exist outside the ecosystem, and every kill by them only drains resources from the ecosystem.

Sometimes I feel like people on this website act to be as obtuse and ignorant as possible to prove some kind of point. This is a great example

Very bad. Cats are fluffy little psychos. They'll clear out anything that moves for fun

What a ridiculous gaslighting question.

Asking us to prove that cats killing wildlife is a bad thing.

A guy once told me that they remove the fallen logs from the Canadian forests because fallen trees are messy and ruin the forest. How do you even respond to such a stupid concept?

The paper is about the species of "domestic cats", which includes feral cats, strays, etc, with unowned cats making up the majority of the kills as compared to owned cats/pets

Noth America had cats before the Europeans came, just not any in the niche that house cats fill. Think less barn cat more bob cat or mountain lion.

I'm pretty sure who not to believe.

Cats are probably the ideal biological machines. Evolution keeps casting them in many form factors from the smallest (house cats) to the largest (bengal tigers?).

From the abstract:

Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals.

I.e. cats might kill more birds and mammals than humans.

Wait until they hear about bacteria and viruses