I would like to share this story from Cibolo Nature Center volunteer Barbara Kilpper. She said: “My experience with cats has evolved greatly over the years. About 16 years ago a charming cat ‘adopted’ me. I was too clueless to even know she was pregnant until she had her kittens in a blanket on my bedroom floor! I was so taken with them that I kept them all. The mother soon disappeared and took up with a neighbor.

Throughout the years more cats have ‘adopted’ me and I now have eight. They have all been neutered. I actually tried to give the most recent one away, but no one wants an older cat (sad).

It took me quite a long time to understand how many birds my cats were getting. I even watched one kill a hummingbird coming to red salvia blossoms in our yard. After that, my husband and I decided to build indoor/outdoor enclosures to protect the birds.

Food, water and litter boxes are inside. I use leaves as “litter” in all outside areas and the cats usually use this unless it’s raining.

Indoor kitty furniture enables them to jump up and down to the shelves and move about the building.

We started with two cats living in our home and six in one large enclosure that has ‘kitty doors’ for indoor/outdoor access.

Soon, we discovered that some of the cats did not get along and had to be separated. Now, the large house only holds four cats, and we converted two small storage sheds into enclosures that each holds one cat. These have a window seat bed at their windows. This provides a way for the cats to go in and out easily. If we had known at the start that we were going to have to separate some of the cats, we could have just built kitty doors into those too.

One day a cat slipped out of her enclosure when I opened the door. I wasn’t too worried because I thought that she was not a hunter. Was I wrong! In less than two minutes, she had killed a female cardinal right in front of me!

I’ll say that keeping our cats in their “kitty condos” is not an absolutely perfect situation but they are happy enough and now my husband and I enjoy a birdsong symphony every morning. We have many beautiful birds that can safely eat from our bird feeders. We have enjoyed some wonderful migrating birds too. Just a couple of weeks ago a huge flock of cedar waxwing came through. They were thrilling to watch; I had never seen them before.

Call (830) 230-5343 or e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ; I’d be more than happy talk about this.

Here are a few facts:

- Cats are not a natural part of the ecosystem and rural cats in Wisconsin alone kill more than 7 million birds a year.

- Well-fed cats kill birds and other wildlife because the hunting instinct is independent of the urge to eat.

- Bells on collars do not prevent cats from killing birds or other wildlife.

- The average life expectancy of an outdoor cat is two to five years; an indoor cat may survive for 17 or
  more years.

- Keeping a cat indoors prevents being hit by a car, wild animal attacks, human cruelty, overpopulation  
  and disease.