Dallas Doesn’t Have a Stray Cat Problem, It Has a Cat Owner Problem

Victor Soberanis is a Dallas native and the Class of 2025 valedictorian for Harmony Science Academy in Dallas. He’s currently studying neuroscience at Columbia University. Soberanis submitted the op-ed below.

Obliterating your car’s brakes to avoid a cat that has launched itself into the middle of the road is unequivocally becoming a modern experience in Dallas. It’s happening in our neighborhoods, shopping centers, and in my most recent experience, the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport at 1:00 a.m.

Dallas’ stray cats appear to be surviving what seems like the feline version of The Hunger Games, dodging speeding cars, withstanding Texas’ extreme temperatures, and fighting other strays with blood-curdling screams that make you wonder what superstrength they might possess. And they are everywhere. Animal shelters across the city are overflowing, while our neighborhoods continue to fill with stray cats. 

However, the truth we don’t like to face is that Dallas is not actually facing a stray cat problem; it’s facing an irresponsible owner problem, and cats are suffering as a result. The growing population of strays is largely driven by unspayed cats, unwanted litters, and owners who allow their cats to roam freely as “outdoor cats.” 

Studies have already made the risk clear: cats with outdoor access are at a higher risk of getting lost and contributing to stray cat populations. Yet, many cat owners continue to allow their pets unsupervised outdoor access, resulting in more cats roaming our city.

Lost cats, however, are not the true engine for this crisis. Owners who fail to spay or neuter their cats are. A single unfixed cat can produce generations of kittens, contributing to the vast number of cats that end up on the streets. My own neighborhood is living proof. Because one of my neighbors failed to spay their female cat, my street has become permanently overrun with stray cats who continue to reproduce and overwhelm the area. 

But why exactly is the surplus of cats bad? Who wouldn’t want the streets to be filled with adorable creatures in what many people assume to be their “natural” environment?

I’ll tell you who: the birds.

Domestic cats are actually highly efficient predators. Descended from the carnivorous African wildcat, they have lost none of their instinct to hunt. Today, domestic cats are responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1.3 – 4 billion birds and 6.3 – 22.3 billion mammals annually, making them the single greatest source of bird and mammal mortality in the United States. 

Although cats may be doing the hunting, it was humans who domesticated and introduced this invasive species to the United States. So when owners allow their cats to roam freely outdoors, they’re also enabling the destruction of wildlife. 

However, it would be hypocritical if I didn’t acknowledge my own flaws as a fellow cat owner. I, too, once allowed my cat to range freely outdoors. Yet, I often found myself having to dispose of the carcasses of birds, lizards, and other small insects that my cat would so graciously leave on my doormat.

Clearly, cats aren’t good for biodiversity. But we can’t blame them for their instinctive nature. It’s the responsibility of cat owners, like me, to ensure we aren’t releasing predators into environments that were not designed to sustain them. 

Making sure we keep our cats indoors becomes even more important as we approach the winter season and temperatures begin to drop. While we may be able to pull out our winter wear and fire on our furnaces to keep warm, cats on the street are not extended this same luxury. 

Cats must rely on their fur to protect themselves against the cold. However, they are not impenetrable, as temperatures below 45 degrees can become too cold for cats, allowing them to feel the effects of hypothermia and potentially fall prey to frostbite. Yet, stray cats have no secondary source of warmth, forced to suffer through freezing nights outside.

So, if you wouldn’t sleep outside in freezing weather, why should your cats have to?

If weather weren’t a big enough threat, cats must also avoid being struck by cars in the urban city of Dallas. In a study that analyzed the life expectancy of young cats, the most common cause of death for cats up to 8 years old was road accidents. In fact, this past November, KENS 5 news reported the death of a 2-year-old community kitten who was run over and killed in Lower Greenville, emphasizing the danger cars pose to loose cats.

When the streets become too dangerous, shelters are supposed to be a refuge. In Dallas, however, animal shelters are quite the opposite. Within five months of 2024, Dallas Animal Services took in nearly 2,000 cats, but 710 were euthanized to halt overcrowding. Innocent cats are losing their lives simply because there are too many of them.

Yet, the easiest way to avoid excessive cat euthanasia and roadside deaths isn’t complicated or inaccessible. It starts at home. If owners stopped allowing their cats to roam freely outdoors, fewer would be hit by cars, fewer would end up lost, and fewer would contribute to the stray cat population.

A more effective solution is spaying and neutering, a straightforward procedure that prevents cats from reproducing and potentially ending up on the streets. In fact, organizations like The Spay Neuter Network of Dallas work to diminish stray populations by taking in stray cats, sterilizing them free of charge, and returning them to their respective neighborhoods.

Recently, I took a local stray to the Spay Neuter Network, and at no cost, I brought home a fixed cat who will never have to freeze through a Dallas winter, dart across traffic, or produce a litter destined for the streets. 

You, my fellow cat owners, can do the same. Taking initiative to diminish stray cat populations can be as simple as spaying or neutering your cat and keeping them indoors, preventing them from becoming the next cat someone slams their brakes for.