Containing Cats
The best solution for protecting all wildlife from your cat is to keep your cat indoors, as promoted by the American Bird Conservancy “Cats Indoors” program.
Many veterinarians also tell us that keeping a cat indoors for its lifetime will lower its risk of disease, accidental injury, or becoming prey to wild animals. Simply put, your cat will live longer as an indoor cat.
However, many cat owners prefer not to deal with cat litter boxes and to afford their cats some freedom and outdoor time. If you let your cat outdoors, perhaps you can limit its roaming in one of these ways.
1- Let your cat outdoors only in a confined area such as a fenced in area or small cat-friendly enclosure that you make or buy. Remember, though, your cat may still prey on birds if only fenced in.
2- Let your cat out for walks on a leash with a harness, or in an enclosure. As strange as this concept may seem at first, many cat owners are experimenting with it, especially in city areas.
3- Limit your cats' time outdoors to some degree. Avoid letting the cat out at dawn hunting hours.
4- Lastly, if you cat does go outdoors, at a minimum, please try to protect birds from your cat. Although the Birdsbesafe® cat collar can not protect 100% of birds at all times, it can significantly lessen the number of birds that your cat captures or harms.
Special Note about Fledglings:
Please keep your cat indoors during the time when fledglings are leaving the nest, but yet unable to fly. If the birds can’t fly away, Birdsbesafe Cat Collar won’t help.
Protecting Birds at Feeders:
Another set of tips for protecting birds that feed at a feeder from cats can be found at Birdwatcher’s Digest (in their answer to question 4) here.