charlabob
The three katskys are strictly indoors (Noam, Roada, and Spot). Long ago I let my cats choose between in- and out-doors. Then someone “practicing” with a bow and arrow shot and killed one (back east, in a high-density urban area). From then on, my cats live inside. They don’t know better and they don’t mind. Actually, once all three escaped together and could not WAIT to get back in the house.
One of my neighbors has some kind of invisible fence and hir cats go out in the yard, sit on the fence, and never leave home. I have no idea how it works, but it seems to work well.
Another neighbor lives with an outdoor cat (this cat really belongs to all of us…but he has a home base, where his food and water dish live.) In the winter, he sleeps in our carport (yeah, on a cat bed that never made it to the yard sale.) :-) In the summer, he sleeps in the warm dirt of my flower beds that hasn’t been planted yet. Or on someone else’s porch or sidewalk. I suspect he’s the reason that we don’t see many other outdoor cats — it’s definitely his turf.
He has licenses and other jinglies (and is big and fat and old) so the only birds he threatens are those who are suicidal in the first place.
One of the “community” things about our particular area is that people know and look out for each others’ pets. When we had Max, the glab, he sometimes got out (OK, the cats opened the door and pushed him out.) People knew him, called, and kept him until we showed up. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, he was safe.
When he died (and when our boo kitty died) people asked about them and were sad too.
I do think people who claim cats don’t want to be indoors are anthropomorphizing a bit. And, obviously, I think they’re safer inside.
Confession: I’m not a big fan of birds, so “They may hurt a bird,” doesn’t really work for me. My outdoor cats always preferred mice.
Someday I’ll tell you-all the story of my favorite political and business aphorism — “Charge the biggest cat” which comes from a field mouse and cats who lived with us in Iowa. Meantime, always charge the biggest cat and you’ll never go wrong :-)