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At least one quarrel among cat lovers is now over: Whiskers, Lucy and Tigger have every interest in staying indoors, scientists said Wednesday.
At least one quarrel among cat lovers is now over: Whiskers, Lucy and Tigger have every interest in staying indoors, scientists said Wednesday.
In fact, cats allowed on the outside are actually nearly three times more likely to be infected with pathogens or parasites than those confined to their neighborhoods, they reported in the newspaper's Royal Society, Biology Letters.
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Two-legged roommates should also take note, as cats – for example, Felis catus – may pass some of these diseases to humans, the authors said.
Curiously, the farther the domesticated felines are from the equator, the more likely they are to be affected by a virus or some kind of virus if they spend time outdoors.
"Each degree of absolute latitude increases the probability of infection by 4%," said lead author Kayleigh Chalkowski, a researcher at the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences at Auburn University, Alabama.
"You think tropical areas simply have more wildlife, more pests," she told AFP. "But it turned out that latitude had the opposite effect."
To definitively resolve the issue between the inside and the outside, Mr. Chalkowski and his colleagues examined nearly two dozen previous studies in which the prevalence of one or more diseases was compared in indoor and outdoor environments.
In total, the new study examined 19 different cat pathogens in more than a dozen countries, including Spain, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, the United States, Pakistan, Brazil, the Netherlands and St. Kitts.
"This is the first time that outdoor access as a risk factor for infection in cats has been quantified for a wide range of geographic locations and types of pathogens," said Chalkowski.
The effects were consistent for almost all diseases, including the feline roundworm and the unicellular parasite at the origin of toxoplasmosis, both of which can affect humans.
This is true regardless of how they were transmitted – by the ground, other cats or prey such as mice and birds.
"Basically, no matter where you are in the world, keeping your cat inside is a great way to protect it from infectious diseases," Chalkowski said in a summary.
It's a particularly wise advice, she added, "considering that many pathogens carried by cats can actually be passed on to humans".
Other domesticated animals transmit diseases to their guardians – dogs, for example, spread rabies and cattle carry Cryptosporidium parvum, a parasitic disease that attacks the intestinal tract.
Wildcats were probably first attracted by human communities in search of rodents and were domesticated about 5,000 years ago. In ancient Egypt, they were associated with the gods and featured prominently in hieroglyphs.
There are about 90 million domestic cats in the United States and about 500 million in the world.
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