He’s an invasive species and he’s devastating the local ecology.

So are you.

Humans are an invasive species

I wish it were that simple, but sadly it isn’t — at least not in the US.

Shelters here were absolutely overwhelmed by COVID. People adopted pets in record numbers during the pandemic for some added company in lockdown, but many of them were not actually prepared for the realities of pet ownership, and ended up abandoning their new pet after the lockdowns lifted. Many were left at shelters, but many were not, and that later group has caused an explosion in the stay cat population in most urban centers around the country.

People living in those areas tend to be poorer and have fewer housing options, and many lower income apartments either do not allow cats at all, or put strict limits on how many you can have. So here’s the typical situation in these areas:

1. The no-kill shelters are full. If you try to bring a stay there, they’ll either refuse to take it, or forward it along to a kill shelter. People taking cats to shelters don’t typically want to see the cat harmed, so instead they’d do what’s called a TNR: trap, neuter, release. The cat is fixed and returned to its original environment — not ideal, but it at least helps to stabilize the stay cat population. Sometimes these cats will be microchipped, sometimes not.
2. Because they can’t take the cat inside (can’t afford to, the landlord won’t allow it, etc) they will set food out for the cat which remains outside. They’re still providing for the cat, just not in an ideal environment. In this situation, cat and caretaker often form a bond even if the cat is not living inside.
3. Sometimes people DO have the resources to take the cat in, but it’s already too feral to cooperate. If a cat has been outside long enough, it becomes much, much harder to smoothly tradition it to inside living. This is made more difficult if you have kids and/or other pets already.
4. The cat may have an infectious disease like FLV that could infect other inside cats, and so no one wants to take the cat inside.
5. The cat may be healthy and a good samaritan may want to bring it inside, but they’ve already adopted many other stays and have too many cats to add another — a symptom of the out-of-control stray population I mentioned at the top.

In a perfect world, no cat should have unsupervised access to the outside. It can vastly shorten the cat’s lifespan by exposing it to disease, the cat’s hunting instincts can cause major damage to the local bird populations (especially fledglings), the cat could be hit by a car, etc, etc etc…

But this isn’t a perfect world, and the sad truth is that there are currently more stray or semi-stray cats in the United States than there are resources available to care for them. If you do have the resources to bring a stray inside, please, please consider doing so. If not, please consider participating in TNR programs in your area. For many people, even this will be out of reach, and they’re just doing the best they can.

So if you feel very strongly that no good owner would ever let their cat outside? Be the change you want to see in the world and adopt one from a shelter, or take in a stray yourself. At the very least, let other people know what they can do to help with the stray cat situation, instead of talking down to well-meaning people on the Internet.