Free-roaming cats can cause problems in terms of community and conservation. In addition, it can be detrimental to the cat, as it will be subject to injury or disease. One management strategy is to confine cats to their owners’ property. It is important to identify drivers and barriers of and to cat containment. These investigators surveilled 356 cat owners in norther Tasmania and identified four profiles:
Consideration of these identified drivers and barriers within the different cat-owner ‘containment groups’ provides the opportunity to design more effective intervention strategies by tailoring and targeting messages and selecting the most appropriate behavioral change strategies.
Results suggest that a cat-owner’s decision to contain their cat is influenced by a range of factors, but two appear to be particularly important. Cat-owners who only sometimes or never contain their cats, relative to those who keep their cats contained, are: (1) more likely to believe that cats have strong physical and emotional needs to be outdoors, and (2) less confident in their abilities to effectively contain their cats. When developing interventions aimed at encouraging households to contain their cats, local councils and animal welfare organizations should ensure that they focus on these two key factors.
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