Petition · Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Require domestic cats to be kept inside April-September and wear belled collars

Closed 345 signatures

What the petition asks

We require domestic cats to wear quick release multi-belled harnesses or belled collars all the time, when cats are venturing outside, and/or be kept house bound between the start of April, right through to the end of September, annually.
This timescale is the most important period of the year for wildlife to breed, raise their young and maintain their numbers, without being predated.

We want legal protection of wildlife from cat predation. Domesticated cats predate through instinct alone, an estimated 270 million animals and songbirds annually in the UK. We think the loss of tens of millions of animals and songbirds each year through cat predation is an increasingly worrying sign of some species being unable to maintain numbers and becoming possibly extinct in the future.

Over the years, birds have been suffering from habitat loss, climate change and the seriously declining insect numbers, the very food that most birds depend upon and cat predation only condenses the seriousness of falling wildlife numbers.

Timeline

16 Dec 2025 Petition opened for signatures
16 Jun 2026 Closed to new signatures

Key facts

Signatures 345
Status Closed
Department Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Opened 16 Dec 2025
Closed 16 Jun 2026

Follow this petition

Sign in to get an email when the government responds, a debate is scheduled or held, or the petition closes.

Source: the official petition page. Last checked 5 Aug 2026.