Cats and Birds: Finding a Way Forward

This article was originally published in the Fall 2026 issue of EarthCare Northwest, our quarterly member newsletter. Become a member today and receive our next issue.

In 2020, my partner and I adopted Neo, a tuxedo cat named for the protagonist of the sci-fi blockbuster, The Matrix. In the film, Neo awakens to a world where machines are farming humans for their “bioelectricity”. In our life, Neo awakes to a world where he—15-times smaller than me—is allotted a full third of the bed; where one ironic amateur pet portrait proliferates into a dozen sincere tributes; where a nonsensical cat-directed pidgin is the default language spoken at home. Welcome to The Meow-trix. We are cat people.

We’re not the only ones. According to the 2021 American Housing Survey, 22% of Seattle-area households have one or more cats, totaling roughly 500,000 pet cats across the region. We lack local data on outdoor access specifically, but if patterns here mirror those elsewhere, a large number of these cats would be allowed outside some of the time. Given that domestic cats’ hunting prowess compares favorably to lions and that they hunt even when well-fed, the choices cat households make about outdoor access can have significant consequences for local wildlife.

As a conservation organization, we have a duty to address outdoor cats as a pressure on wild birds. As cat people, we have a desire to be thoughtful. We are conscious of the long history of persecution of cats—rooted in misogyny—that the rhetoric of conservation has sometimes inflamed. As a first step toward more strategically and carefully engaging on this issue, our Conservation Committee adopted a position statement on outdoor, free-ranging cats. In it, we summarize our research of scientific literature, our current understanding of local conditions, and provide initial recommendations.

Managing outdoor cats is complicated and emotionally charged. We’re not expecting easy answers. But we’re committed to engaging on the issue—with humility, with curiosity, and with our own cats harvesting the bioelectricity from our laps.

Key Research Findings

Domestic cats cause substantial harm to wildlife. In the United States, outdoor cats kill an estimated 2.4 billion birds annually, and globally they have contributed to at least 14% of modern bird, mammal, and reptile extinctions.
Pet cats alone account for one-third of U.S. bird mortality from cats, and studies show what cats bring home to their owners represents only a fraction of actual kills.
Outdoor access carries serious risks to the cats themselves, including from road traffic, predation by wildlife, poisoning, and infectious disease.
While there are compelling reasons to support cat containment on both ecological or animal-welfare grounds, outdoor cat management remains a contentious conservation impasse, with deep disagreements over values, ethics, and science.

Local Conditions

An estimated 110,000 owned and 73,000–175,000 feral cats live within the Birds Connect Seattle service area.
At PAWS, 8% of bird patients arrive with cat-related injuries, and across Washington state wildlife rehabilitation clinics, cats are implicated in 30% of all patient intakes.
Road traffic, high urban coyote densities, and ubiquitous rodenticide use are of special concern to outdoor cat welfare in the Seattle area.
Multiple, large-scale TNR programs, pet licensing requirements, and outreach programs will inform and shape our opportunities for reducing outdoor cat impacts on wildlife and improving cat welfare.

Read the Research Summary