Discounting multiple benefits of cat containment by reframing them as trade-offs: Response to Glanville et al. (2025)

Domestic cats (Felis catus) are favoured companion animals, but also highly effective predators that have caused substantial declines and extinctions of native fauna in many places where they have been introduced. In Australia, free-roaming pet cats kill hundreds of millions of native animals annually, contributing to one of the world’s most severe modern extinction crises. In response, policy, advocacy and public messaging has increasingly promoted responsible pet cat management, including containment, on the multiple grounds of biodiversity protection, public amenity, disease spread reduction, and benefits to cat health and welfare. A recent article by Glanville C, Hampton JO, and Sandøe P 2025 Calling a trade-off a trade-off in arguments for cat confinement. Animal Welfare 34: e65. https://doi.org/10.1017/awf.2025.10041. challenges this messaging, arguing that claiming welfare benefits from cat containment is wilfully or negligently misleading. Here, we respond to four central arguments advanced by Glanville et al. We argue that separating physical health from welfare is conceptually flawed; that containment, like free-roaming, involves welfare pros and cons to cats (and their prey) that must all be evaluated concurrently; that privileging a cat’s freedom to roam ignores the welfare and rights of the animals harmed by roaming cats; and that allegations of “bad faith” or deceptive messaging by containment advocates are unfounded and unhelpful. While acknowledging that containment requires enriched care from cat owners, any uncertainty regarding relative welfare outcomes of containment versus free-roaming for cats does not justify ignoring the clear and severe welfare and conservation harms imposed on other animals by free-roaming cats. In Australia, pet cat containment remains a pragmatic pathway that aligns conservation objectives with overall animal welfare.