I’d never keep my cat indoors – it’s cruel ...Middle East

Whenever I look at my two-year-old cat Kit Marlowe, her jet-black coat gleaming, molten-gold eyes glowing, I marvel that such a perfect creature has consented to share her existence with us. We live in the remote, rural Scottish countryside and she has access to fields, woods and lanes.

She’s fed extremely expensive cat food twice a day, with constant access to dry biscuits – but cats are predators by nature. Sometimes, she kills mice and kindly brings her offerings to the foot of the bed, because she knows we’re rubbish at hunting. Very occasionally, she takes down a small bird that’s strayed too close to her own nesting spot on the windowsill.

It’s lucky, then, that according to NatureScot, Scotland’s nature agency, 18 of 23 Scottish woodland bird species have increased since 1994, with farmland and urban birds also showing slight population growth. The song thrush, wren and willow warbler have increased by over 50 per cent, due to a warmer, wetter climate – also though sadly, native birds such as grouse and kestrel are declining, due to land management changes and forestry expansion.

What hasn’t caused a significant drop in their numbers, however, is domestic cats like mine. Kit Marlowe may be a naturally swift and ruthless assassin, but even she isn’t capable of dragging a partridge through the catflap.

Yet despite the statistics, an animal welfare body which advises the Scottish government insists that pet cats inflict ‘untold damage’ on native birds and mammals. The Scottish Animal Welfare Commission’s latest report has mooted rules and restrictions for cat ownership in areas where wildlife is most at risk, and cat ‘containment zones’, where owners would be subject to diktats such as keeping cats indoors and only being permitted to walk pets outside ‘on a lead.’ It appears nobody at SAWC has ever met a cat, because if I tried that with mine, I’d be in A&E with full-body scratches before you could say ‘slipped her collar and ran up a tree.’

Cats need space to roam. While female cats hold territory smaller than their male counterparts’, Marlowe is at her happiest perched on a fencepost surveying the neighbouring field, just as my previous, urban cats loved to patrol the garden walls. Cats are curious, energetic and keenly driven by smell. They need to set the boundaries of their world, explore the territory, negotiate the rules of engagement with other cats. I truly believe that refusing them the right to roam creates the conditions for behavioural issues and depression (aka, feline low).

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A spokesperson for the commission insists ‘SAWC did not propose a cat ‘ban’ as has been reported: “The report on responsible cat ownership simply asks Ministers to consider commissioning further work on the impact of cats on wildlife in specific, vulnerable areas and whether there is evidence for containment measures – among other issues such as microchipping.’

‘Cat containment areas’ mean domestic cats would be confined to barracks or in a ‘catio’ – a huge outdoor cage with platforms and walkways which in my case, would allow Marlowe to watch pine martens, foxes and polecats dismember wildlife with impunity from her incarcerated viewing spot.

Australia is already subject to these rules in certain areas, with their governments insisting on keeping domestic cats indoors or in their catio, to protect endangered species.

In Britain, however, 74 per cent of cats are allowed outside. Most of them spend that time lying in a spot of sun with their legs in the air or snarling at other neighbourhood cats. Some do kill birds and mammals, of course, but a study published in leading science journal Nature casts doubt on the regularly repeated claim that in the UK, cats kill over 50 million birds a year.

‘Existing estimates of mortality from cat predation are speculative and not based on scientific data,’ it explains, ‘or, at best, are based on extrapolation of results from a single study.’ A larger study found that a huge 69 per cent of bird deaths annually are caused by un-owned cats.

It stands to reason – because barn cats, strays, and street-cats don’t have loving owners dishing out Dreamies every five minutes (looking at you again, Kit Marlowe), and they’re hungry. The predation rate for cats without owners was three times higher, neatly proving that when cats are fed regularly, they may kill by instinct sometimes, but it’s not their main hobby. (That would be sleeping on my pillow). Reports from the British Trust for Ornithology even show a growth in the blackbird population over the same period in which cat ownership has doubled.

OK, when Marlowe slides through the catflap, shining with purpose, she’s probably not going round to the local nest for tea and gossip – but she has a definite preference for mice, much like the other cats I’ve owned throughout my life. Birds are fast, airborne, and the feathers are no fun to eat. I love them, too, and I have a bird table outside my office. My husband initially described it as a ‘cat drive-through,’ but she prefers watching the interesting fluttering to getting her paws dirty. Besides, the jingling collar bell has almost certainly saved more species than most eco-initiatives put together.

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