While feral cats are often cited as a significant threat to wild animals, domestic cats may have an even greater impact due to their higher densities in residential areas. In New Zealand, where conservation efforts are crucial to protecting native species, researchers aimed to understand what motivates cat guardians to keep their cats indoors at night — a simple but effective strategy to mitigate wild animal predation.

This study surveyed 2,005 households across New Zealand to examine people’s attitudes, beliefs, and involvement with cat and wild animal welfare. The researchers applied the approach-avoidance conflict framework, which explains how people struggle to make decisions when they value two opposing goals equally: in this case, ensuring companion cats’ well-being and protecting wild animals. They hypothesized that these conflicting feelings could create barriers to behavior change.

The researchers measured attitudes and beliefs toward keeping cats indoors at night, as well as other actions like putting warning devices on cats’ collars and preventing cats from entering nature reserves and parks with non-lethal deterrents. They used five-point scales, with one representing the strongest disagreement and five indicating the highest level of agreement.

To measure involvement, respondents were asked to rate statements about the importance of taking good care of cats and protecting native wild animals, as well as how passionate they are about these actions, how rewarding they find them, how serious the consequences are of not doing them, and how reflective these actions are of their own and other people’s character. These were also captured on five-point agreement scales.

The researchers found a number of differences between cat guardians and those who had never had a cat. For instance:

• Compared to non-cat guardians, cat guardians had more positive attitudes toward cat welfare (average scores of 4.1 versus 3.5), as well as toward protecting native wild animals (average scores of 4.2 versus 3.6).
• Cat guardians had less positive attitudes toward keeping cats indoors at night than non-cat guardians (average scores of 3.5 versus 4.0), and they were more likely to believe that it’s difficult to do so (average scores of 3.2 versus 2.8). Similarly, they were more likely to see collars as a danger to cats (average scores of 3.3 versus 2.5) and believe that some cats just won’t wear one (average scores of 3.6 versus 2.9).
• Non-cat guardians were slightly more prepared to take action to protect native wild animals than cat guardians (average scores of 3.8 versus 3.7), though cat guardians were slightly more prepared to take some responsibility for protecting native wild animals (average scores of 3.9 versus 3.7).

The results also highlight how attitudes, beliefs, and involvement are interrelated. Involvement with keeping cats indoors at night was higher if respondents believed that cats are a threat to wild animals, that roaming is dangerous for cats, and that collars and other deterrents are ineffective. Conversely, if respondents were highly involved in cat welfare and thought that keeping cats indoors at night and using collars and other deterrents were harmful to cats, they were less likely to support these measures. Cat guardians who were highly involved with wild animal protection and had strong attitudes toward cat welfare were more likely to feel responsible for protecting birds and other native species from cats and were more willing to take action.

However, these findings should be viewed in light of the study’s demographics, which were skewed toward older, wealthier, and more highly educated respondents. Respondents of European descent were also over-represented in the study compared to Māori, Pacific Island, or Asian peoples. Therefore, the sample may not be representative of New Zealanders in general or of New Zealand cat guardians in particular.

Despite these limitations, a number of recommendations still follow from the results. As only around 20% of cat guardians in this study reported mostly or always keeping their cats indoors at night, there is considerable room for change.

• Conservationists and animal advocates seeking to encourage cat containment should use messaging that addresses wild animal protection and feline welfare while avoiding guilt-driven narratives.
• Campaigns should use persuasive but non-confrontational language to highlight the benefits of keeping cats safe indoors and counter the belief that doing so is unnatural.
• In line with previous research, encouraging affordable and viable solutions such as cat patios or supervised outdoor time may increase the adoption of cat containment practices. Similarly, promoting safe and effective anti-predation collar devices may increase their uptake.

From an approach-avoidance viewpoint, these strategies would aim to increase approach behavior (containing or deterring cats from preying on wild animals) and decrease avoidance behavior (letting cats roam free without any containment or deterrents).

Ultimately, the research makes us think about possible cooperation. Engaging cat and non-cat guardians in wild animal conservation and ethical companion animal care discussions will be beneficial in bridging the gap between awareness and action.