Responsible ownership and care of domestic cats in Scotland: report

1. Scope

This report considers the welfare of domestic cats (Felis catus) and the actions of cat owners that promote good welfare (the actions of a responsible cat owner) for their own cats, while also considering how these actions affect the wider cat population. In preparing this report, we considered both the owned domestic cat population and the feral or unowned and free-roaming domestic cat population, including consideration of the flow of cats between these populations. An important consideration is the intersection between domestic cats (owned or unowned) and the European wildcat (Felis silvestris) population in Scotland (hereafter referred to as wildcats), which is threatened by hybridisation with domestic cats. SAWC’s focus is on the welfare of the animals involved, and not the conservation status or actions that might be taken to ensure the genetic lineage of wildcats in Scotland. This should not be taken to mean that these arguments are not important, but the remit of SAWC is to focus specifically on animal welfare.