Cats indoors: policies on keeping felines inside under scrutiny

Governments increasingly banning cats from going outside is hotly contested, but why aren’t the health issues for cats being raised - or just simply mandating bell collars, asks Clarissa Bye.

We received a strange handwritten letter about one of our cats recently. It was from the people in a rented townhouse over the road and had been tucked in the metal grill of our front gate.

“We have been suffering a serious problem of your cat’s Phoo,” it began.

“It comes very often and Phoo every where in our lawn, in front of car driveway, on the water hose, in front of our house, in front of our greenhouse.”

The note went on to say it was very annoying and disgusting and “could you please train your cat properly or keep it indoors so that it doesn’t disturb others”.

It was rather perplexing. Had one of my cats really done this? We do have four cats, but we also have a very big back garden, with courtyards and more space in the front garden.

Libby the cat, blamed for being a "phoo bomber".

It seemed quite weird that any of our cats would choose to cross the road and do their business on the vast sweep of concrete there, instead of burying it like normal.

I watched the cats over the following days, but didn’t see any signs of them crossing the road, much less “Phoo” bombing.

Feral cats trapped by Hornsby Shire Council rangers at Hornsby. Picture: AAP.

Not long after, the note’s author turned up at my door. Her husband stood meekly a few steps behind.

She asked if I had received her letter. I nodded and she launched into a monologue on how she’d found these dreadful messes.

“What did the cat look like?” I asked.

She said the cat was hard to describe as she had only seen it skulking around very early in the morning, but it could have been brown or grey. Also, she hadn’t actually caught it in the act.

Kangaroo shooter Peter Absolom with a wild feral cat he shot.

“And you are sure it’s our cat?” I asked. “There are other cats in the street. Or a possum.”

She shook her head: “We saw it near your house.”

I told her our cats usually dig a hole and bury their business in the garden, so it seemed out of character.

Could she take a photograph? Or hose the cat to scare it away? None of this placated her. Finally I offered to buy a cat deterrent spray but she said she’d already tried that. I promised to keep an eye on our cats and encourage them to stay in our backyard and keep them in at night.

Was our frail old pussy Libby the culprit? She’s a gentle cat, very queenly – a ragdoll with a soft light grey and white coat. It seemed very out of character for this timid, ageing cat to brazenly do such a thing.

The others didn’t fit the description either – one is black, another white and the third ginger.

Ginger was the wrong colour to be blamed as the "phoo bomber".

Iggy the black cat, was also the wrong colour to be the "phoo" bomber.

But it had me wondering if there’s been any issue with cats in our street.

I went to the local Facebook group and was blown away by the anti-cat postings.

Yikes. There’s a real set against cats out there. “Cats are killing machines!” read one, while another demanded: “Lock up your cats!”

Some of the posters went on about the wildlife, while others warned that felines need to be permanently kept indoors “for their own safety”.

An alleged incident about a cat doing a wee in a man’s pair of joggers in a garage had sparked a furious online debate.

My daughter in Newtown has two cats. They freely roam her street. In fact the neighbourhood is quite a cat community. When she walks up to King St with her boyfriend, they pat and know the names of all the local cats sitting on fences and porches.

But across Australia there’s a concerted push to lock up our furry friends. The control freaks are taking over. A friend who bought a pedigree kitten had to sign a pledge to keep it indoors.

A recent federal parliamentary inquiry into the “problem of feral and domestic cats” had 202 submissions, with the majority wanting draconian lockdowns.

A feral cat. Picture: Supplied, Centre for Invasive Species Solutions, Andrew Cooke.

Only a few voices spoke up to defend domestic tabbies.

One was a cat welfare society that argued parliamentarians were conflating two quite separate issues and they listed all the wonderful benefits cats have in improving people’s lives.

In the socialist laboratory of the ACT, they’ve already introduced laws declaring “cat containment suburbs”.

And now Hornsby Shire has joined the control freaks, with a motion at the annual meeting of Local Government NSW on October 23, calling for 24/7 cat lockdowns.

Urban feral cat problem in Telopea. Feral cats pictured at the back of shops at Benaud place, Telopea.

Yet very few are speaking up to defend the status quo, or raise the case for the health benefits for cats to go outside. There’s a strong body of research warning about trapping cats indoors, with side effects of chronic stress, behavioural issues and obesity from a “spatially limited and monotonous environment”.

“A growing body of literature also suggests that stress-related illnesses, such as lower urinary tract signs, are typically more prevalent in indoor-only cats,” one 2021 study found.

Another stated: “Insufficient levels of enrichment and the inability to avoid stressful human-social environments indoors may contribute towards the comparatively higher levels of undesirable and sickness behaviours observed in indoor-only cats.”

If they must start controlling the lives of cats with the heavy hand of the law, why don’t they just insist on cat bells?

As for the identity of the “Phoo” bomber, I haven’t discovered the culprit but at least there’s been no more notes.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed.