How to keep cat out of yard, but let squirrels still come and go

[elliek1]

I woke up one morning to a large cat invading a dove nest on my patio.... very upsetting.
Chattering squirrels have alerted me several recent mornings about this same cat's presence in my yard.

I DO NOT want the cat in my yard, killing more birds... or squirrels.... so I have been researching ways to keep it out of my yard. ( I don't know who owns the cat and it seems well fed)

I have many trees around the yard, along the walls, etc. and the squirrels mostly seem to come and go from high up, and not ON the wall, whereas the cat seems to prowl along the wall and go over it to escape.. I saw one suggestion about putting chicken wire around or in gardens so I put some in the location where I've seen the cat several times, and when I chased it today, it got kind of tangled up in the chicken wire before it moved on. I felt bad because I certainly don't want to hurt the cat.... AND, I don't want squirrels to get tangled up in the chicken wire!!

Would welcome any suggestions. I believe I've gotten a bit overly anxious and controlling about the wildlife in my backyard... doves, squirrels, hummingbirds and lizards... and would like to just relax and let nature do it's thing. But a neighbor's cat invading doesn't seem like 'nature.'

[Daisey007]

I woke up one morning to a large cat invading a dove nest on my patio.... very upsetting.
Chattering squirrels have alerted me several recent mornings about this same cat's presence in my yard.

I DO NOT want the cat in my yard, killing more birds... or squirrels.... so I have been researching ways to keep it out of my yard. ( I don't know who owns the cat and it seems well fed)

I have many trees around the yard, along the walls, etc. and the squirrels mostly seem to come and go from high up, and not ON the wall, whereas the cat seems to prowl along the wall and go over it to escape.. I saw one suggestion about putting chicken wire around or in gardens so I put some in the location where I've seen the cat several times, and when I chased it today, it got kind of tangled up in the chicken wire before it moved on. I felt bad because I certainly don't want to hurt the cat.... AND, I don't want squirrels to get tangled up in the chicken wire!!

Would welcome any suggestions. I believe I've gotten a bit overly anxious and controlling about the wildlife in my backyard... doves, squirrels, hummingbirds and lizards... and would like to just relax and let nature do it's thing. But a neighbor's cat invading doesn't seem like 'nature.'

Hello -

I'm exactly the same way about the wildlife in my yard. This is what I did and it helped a lot. First, I put up a chain link fence around my back yard, about an acre. Doing that eliminated a lot of animals just running through my yard BUT I kept finding cats camped out by my squirrel enclosure. They climbed over the fence. I asked around and no one claimed them. Then I happen to notice that a cat had 1/4 - 1/3 of an ear cut off which of course indicates that the cat had been caught and neutered, and then 'released' back to the wild... it was feral. The area in which I live does not support maintaining feral cat colonies, they feel that they bring injury and disease to peoples pets. I'm not overly fond of cats but I wouldn't hurt one. That said, I don't want them killing in my yard. I even had an enclosure built (6x18) for my CAT because I not only wanted to protect him from Coyotes, I wanted to protect the wildlife from him! Yet, I just kept finding these feral cat(s), and so finally I used a safe trap and I trapped them and took them to animal control. There were 6 total. I hated to do that because they were wild and were probably euthanized. BUT.... I didn't want to look out and see one of my squirrels hanging from their mouth either. So, my answer is to try to find the owner... and if all else fails trap it and either rehome it or take it to animal control.