You really don't know what you are talking about mate. Indoor cats live 13-17 years. Outdoor cats average 2-5. What's cruel is willfully exposing your cat to an environment that will very likely result in a reduction of their lifespan by 60-80%. There are plenty of ways to stimulate a cat that don't involve dramatic risk of disease, parasites, disfigurement or death by predator or vehicle.

Pretty sure that you are talking about feral cats rather than cats that are allowed to go outdoors.

I am not. I am talking about domestic cats allowed to roam outdoors unsupervised some of the time.

What’s your source on the life expectancy of outdoor cats? I haven’t observed this having any impact myself. Cats that stay indoors and ones that free roam seem to have the same life expectancy. The ones that roam even seem healthier.

Human Society and University of California-Davis.

Would you happen to have the exact paper?

> Outdoor cats average 2-5.

On the other anecdata, my parents have only had outdoor cats and every single one has made it past 5 - several past 10, one past 20. Of the 10 I can think of just now, only 1 died of "unnatural" causes (car).

The pet cat industry in general is evil. Keeping them indoors is the best way to protect local wildlife, there are still many ways to make an indoor cat happy. If it were up to me, breeding of cats would be banned and existing populations would be the "final" permitted generation.

Or, we have one final generation of people and let nature sort itself out...