Posting observations of feral, stray, and domestic cats – captive or wild?

General
1

Hi everyone,

I’d like to ask for clarification and hear the community’s perspective on how to handle cat observations on iNaturalist.

  • It seems clear that cats that are kept as pets indoors should be marked as captive/cultivated.

  • Feral cats, fully independent from humans, seem to fall under wild.

  • But what about stray cats that live outside yet still receive some level of human care (like regular feeding or occasional shelter)?

  • And how should we treat owned cats that roam freely outdoors, spending much of their time wandering or hunting?

I know this can be a sensitive topic because of the ecological implications of free-roaming cats, but I’d really like to hear how others in the iNat community approach these situations. Are there general guidelines, or is it more of a case-by-case judgment?

Thanks for your insights—I want to make sure I’m aligning my observations with the community’s expectations and the platform’s standards.

2

Hi Gabriel,

I respect your diligence. It’s clear that you care a lot about “aligning your observations with the community’s expectations and the platform’s standards”.

It might seem like you asked a simple question, but this is actually a very contentious topic that has been discussed at length. Here are some resources:

This thread has 97 replies: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/cats-wild-versus-domestic/

3

I’d say, when in doubt, mark it wild. And with cats, we’re often in doubt.

4

To me, stray cats seem wild, as I struggle to see how they’re different from something like a bird that visits a bird feeder and nests in a bird house. It’s still wild, even if it’s receiving support from humans.

5

Hearing you articulate this crystallized in my mind that if a feral cat is considered wild, then “feral” trees sure seem like they should also be considered wild, even if they were planted by a human 100 years ago. A lot of iNat’s rules only make sense as the perspective of zoologists who are plant-blind… (Not saying that’s you!) ;-)

6

But then one can make the opposite argument too. The iNat consensus is to mark a bush that has been planted decades ago by humans as cultivated, especially if it is still being watered and cared for, but even if it is not. Only descendants of that bush that have propagated naturally would be considered wild plants. So indeed, your point is valid that it is difficult to see how a human-fed stray cat is different from a bird that visits a feeder; but a plant in similar circumstances is not typically treated as wild, so one could equally draw the analogy with that and come to the opposite conclusion.

7

If the observer has left a note or a comment - then respect their opinion for Wild or Not Wild. Otherwise the judgement call is up to you.

8

Given that plants and animals have such wildly different behaviors and ecologies, it makes sense to me that the rules surrounding them would differ to some extent. Plants don’t move, for one thing.

9

I understand the comparison, but I don’t think the analogy between “feral cats” and “feral trees” really works. A tree planted by humans a century ago is still a fixed organism at the site where it was intentionally placed. Unless it reproduces and spreads beyond cultivation, it remains a relic of that original action. Cats, on the other hand, are mobile animals that reproduce, disperse widely, and actively alter ecosystems through predation and competition. Their presence is not just about where they were introduced but about the ongoing ecological roles they assume.

The scale and unpredictability of impact also differ greatly. A planted tree may affect its surroundings—through shade, soil enrichment, or seed dispersal—but its influence is localized and relatively constrained. By contrast, feral cats are opportunistic predators whose ecological footprint extends across entire landscapes. They directly kill or displace native species, and their populations can expand far beyond the control of humans. In this sense, treating a tree that passively persists where it was planted as equivalent to a cat that roams, hunts, and breeds freely overlooks the fundamental difference in agency and ecological effect.

10

Avid “stray cat” observer here. I tend to mark them wild, and anyone is allowed to disagree with me. Personally, any cat that happens to exist outdoors, whether owned by a person or not is often acting on behavioral instincts that they would have in the wild, such as hunting and mating. This means that these individuals also hold an impact in the environments they are not native to, and this should be recorded.

11

To be honest, I disagree with a lot of the commenters here - I think it’s best to mark cats as “not wild” unless proven otherwise. Many people don’t collar their pet cats (especially barn cats, which are ubiquitous where I live) and even many “community” cats are cared for by multiple people. These community cats are often spayed or neutered, given vaccines and vet care, fed, and sheltered by people. They are, for all intents and purposes, pets that are cared for by many people, even if they’re not friendly to humans and kill wildlife. This, to me, is different than people feeding birds at feeders (they generally aren’t providing vet care or controlling populations) or people taking wildlife to rehabbers (rehab is temporary and doesn’t result in long-term sheltering and feeding). I understand, however, that marking feral cats as “wild” can influence management decisions and promote control/removal of these populations to protect wildlife, so it’s a complicated subject.

12

I have to disagree, as I live in an area that is home to rural areas where outdoor cats are often utilized as pest control, and most farmers and ranchers who do this don’t spay/neuter their cats as often as you’d think. I’d even find litters or juvenile kittens often while on my nighttime wildlife viewings. It would be nice if every outdoor cat weren’t reproducing, but that’s simply unrealistic. Also, whether or not a cat is spayed/neutered, does not mean that cat won’t exhibit an impact on the ecosystems surrounding them.

13

I did a lot of iNatting in a place that had been extensively planted with many non-native species several decades ago but then largely abandoned. When it seemed likely that the individual I was looking at was still where a person placed it, I understood it to be cultivated, because the iNat definition relies on whether placement is determined by humans. When I looked at dropped seeds, fruit, other sexual or asexual offspring that were not exactly where the original plant was planted, I marked these as wild. Is this an arbitrary human-focused definition? Absolutely. But it accomplishes nothing for us each to use whatever definition we want at that moment.

14

I get that. I follow the rules on iNat, too. My point was just to highlight that this guideline is artibrary and contradictory. Many of the problems we run into on this platform is that it’s trying to shoehorn all of life into abiding by the same rules, but bacteria / fungi / plants / insects / etc sometimes require totally different mindsets and paradigms and computer coding than charismatic megafauna.

This is the mindset I’m talking about. Plants are never passively persisting! A tree is gathering in and throwing out tons of different resources that can exert an influence for hundreds of meters, they’re interacting with fungi and insects and birds and mammals who can spread their influence even further, they’re doing warfare and competition and symbiosis with other individuals in the region, and much much more. Like cats, plants also “kill or displace native species” and their “populations can expand far beyond the control of humans”. Just because plant individuals can’t walk doesn’t mean they aren’t actively altering the landscape, exhibiting agency, and having ecological effect, like cats.

I know that feral cats are a big deal, I just think that if we’re calling them “wild”, then a plant with similar ownership should be just as “wild”.

Anyway, I don’t need to derail this poor thread further. The whole feral cat question has been hashed out a bazillion times already anyway and the battle lines are well established…

15

Wild/non-wild has never been about whether an organism has an impact on the ecosystem.

There are plenty of indisputably non-wild organisms (organisms put at a particular location and actively cared for by humans) that nevertheless interact with and significantly influence ecosystems. Sometimes they are even brought to a place with the specific intention of helping to manage a natural site (e.g., grazing to maintain an open landscape).

Nor are artificial ecosystems (monocultures, greenhouses, human habitations) free of the influence of wild organisms.

Wild vs. non-wild on iNat has always been about occurrence data only: does the record represent an organism that was put there by humans or one that got there on its own.

16

Feral, wild, and pet animals can all impact the ecosystems surrounding them! My point was just that many of these animals aren’t really “wild”, as they’re extensively supported by humans in just about every way. Neutering them is really the least of it, in my mind - they’re still being fed, watered, housed, and often receiving at least some vet care.

17

I generally take the stance that any outdoor cat is essentially a wild animal that is managing to take advantage of humans to give it food, shelter and veterinary care.

18

My best understanding of wild vs. captive/cultivated. The criterion is whether the organism is there because it got itself there or if humans put it there on purpose.
Tree that people planted: cultivated, for its whole life. Yes, even after 100 years.
Tree that people did NOT plant, even if a housing development has grown up around it and it is now surrounded by a mowed lawn or by concrete: wild (though we identifiers may not be able to tell; be sure to comment as you post it.)
Weeds grown from seeds tracked in on your boots: wild

Restoration site: First generation (planted) is cultivated. Plants that grow up from their seeds, or even from spreading rhizomes are wild. What if you can’t tell which are which? (Heh, heh, heh – a work-around!) I mark them wild at that point.

Now for cats out in the world, I think we need to consider other animal examples and see what the cats most resemble.
Birds and squirrels at my bird feeder: wild
Wapiti or deer at a winter feeding station where they’re eating hay put out for them: wild
Fish that’s been caught and is photo’d that day where it was caught: wild
Fish put in a small pond they can’t escape: first generation captive. If they reproduce, offspring maybe wild, maybe captive (e.g. trout farms) depending on people’s intentions. A tough case.
Fish released into a river, to swim out to sea and maybe come back: wild after release.
Dead, pinned insect in a collection, posted with the date and location where it was caught: wild
Dead, pinned insect in a collection, posted with the date and place where the collection is now, long after & away from the point of capture: captive
Cattle in a fenced pasture: captive
Cattle on open range, put there by ranchers, to be rounded up later in the year: captive though they may not look like that.
Pet bird in a cage: captive, even if it’s a “wild” species
Pet bird that has escaped and is flying free: wild, even though it’s a species not normally found wild there
Pet turtle released in a lake, not forming an established population (as far as you know): wild
Wild bird in a rehabilitation program: wild before it was captured, wild when held by a person at the place and date when it was captured, captive while in rehabilitation, captive in a cage just before release, wild after release.

So what are wandering cats? Here’s my opinion.
Feral cats coming to a feeding station: wild (like birds at feeder)
Feral cats that were been vaccinated and spayed or neutered and released and are now coming to a feeding station: wild (parallel to rehabilitated wild birds)
Barn cats: wild (parallel to wild birds coming to a feeder, or sometimes more to rehab birds since sometimes people do release cats to be barn cats)
Pet cat that escapes and is later recaptured: wild while it’s free, captive otherwise, though an edge case

Difficult case: pet cats that live at home and are allowed to go outside regularly. Are they more like cattle on the open range (captive) or like feral cats that got an episode of care, were released, and now are still being fed (wild)? Some of these wandering cats are quite definitely where they are not wanted ( https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/310372525 ). Mostly, I can’t tell if a particular cat has a house to live in. Absence of a collar tells me nothing about that and even presence of a collar doesn’t, since the cat could have escaped long ago. I mark them wild. I can understand marking them captive.

19

Barn cat clarification: My experience with barn cats was in an area where you could be sure that if you didn’t have barn cats, sooner or later you would. One would wander in, and then more. Cats appeared to survive the winter whether fed or not, though they certainly did take advantage of shelter. An individual cat would disappear, you’d think her dead, and a few months later she’d be back. There are places where cats can’t survive the winter without support, and how you’d classify them might hinge on that. Or not.

20

You gave the example of a tree planted by a human 100 years ago. I don’t think that particular tree displaces or kills a considerable number of other organisms. However, the plants that descend from it are wild, and they do have ecological implications