Did you know that outdoor cats are responsible for over 196 million bird fatalities a year?! Keeping your cat indoors is essential to protecting birds in King Township. The best way to help protect local wildlife and your cats’ health is to keep them inside, on a leash and supervised if outside. Keeping your cat indoors, also reduces the risk of other types of harm to cats, including:
- Collisions with vehicles
- Being attacked and eaten by wild coyotes
- Being attacked and eaten by wild hawks, owls and other raptors
- Being attacked by domestic dogs, other roaming cats, raccoons
- Contracting pests such as fleas, ticks, lice or internal parasites
- Contracting infectious diseases such as feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV)
- Contacts with environmental hazards such as poison ivy
- Extreme weather (e.g., freezing, heat waves)
- Drowning in bodies of water or floods
- Stepping on broken glass or other sharps
- Secondary rodenticide poisoning
- Starvation or dehydration, especially if accidentally trapped in confined spaces such as dumpsters
- Theft, injury or death by people with cruel intentions
Helpful Links:
https://ontarionature.org/what-we-can-do-to-help-birds-blog/