Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Outdoor Cats

[Don Westlight (don]

Becky,

A year ago we made a search similar to yours and didn't find anything,
either. 

The cat issue is a big one.  The fact that dense numbers of domestic cats
eradicate vast portions of native wildlife is incontrovertable.  We have a
similar problem at Cascadia Commons except that instead of lizards, the
issue is ground nesting songbirds in our wetlands. 


<controversial opinion>

The bottom line is that some of our members (and most of our neighbors) do
not consider sceintific evidence of cat predation a reason for changing
the human behavior of keeping indoor/outdoor cats as pets.  These
individuals have grown up in a culture where indoor/outdoor cats are
synonomous with the good life...

Any meaningful restriction of pet outdoor cats requires the attending
human to make a behavior change.

We have investigated a number of technologies -- electric collars (which
cat's apparrently can't wear due to bone structure), bad smelling spices
and chemicals (very limited effectiveness), automated sensor controlled
sprinklers (ok for very small plots, but useless for any sort of large
area, or anywhere with dense plants).  We've also tried bells, which are
admittedly better than nothing, but still not a solution (it takes two
bells to make any sort of difference)...

The only real option is to physically restrict the cats in some manner,
either with leashes or with fencing -- neither of which is something our
community is ready to do.

We have talked about not replacing outdoor cats, but have not passed
anything in this regard either.


For me (and I am not alone) outdoor felines get to a core value: 

        environmentalism starts at home

My cats remain indoors.

This is an example of an issue where there isn't a huge amount of room for
compromise.  Cats are either restrained or they're not.  The argument that
neighbor cats will still be in the wetlands holds no water with me,
contributing more is an irresponsible act.

<end controversial opinion>



That said, I love living in co-housing, and at the end of the day, I am
able to put this aside and enjoy community life.  It is true that issues
arise from time to time which don't lend themselves to half steps and
compromises which sometimes characterize concensus decisionmaking on
difficult subjects.  The important thing is to keep talking and not to get
so polarized as to lose the sense of community we all worked so hard to
build.  In the neighborhood where I used to live, having this discussion
with my neighbors was unthinkable, so we are in the business of evolving a
new culture.

        Cheers and good luck
                -Don Westlight, Cascadia Commons, Portland OR






> Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 06:11:08 -0700
> From: Becky Schaller <bschaller [at] theriver.com>
> 
> Do other communities have any policies about cats being outdoors.  I think I
> checked this in the archives and read some discussion of problems, but
> didn't see any real solutions.

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