I don’t know much about breeding cats, but honestly, it seems no matter how cats manage to reproduce, either with or without human interference, there is a dark side, which can be really hard on them. Reading some breeders comments about how hard it is to produce first generations hybrids does make me concerned that from the cats perspective, the risks may not be worth it. And breeding any larger animal with a smaller animal has risks. But it seems existing animal cruelty laws could weigh the potential problems and address this, if this is a substantial concern.
I don’t think spaying and neutering every cat people can possibly get there hands on, to prevent them from a life that may involve suffering, is the best long term solution. It has been shown a cats personality is partly genetic, and inherited through the father, so I wonder what we are doing to them as a species, when it is often only the most fearful and antisocial feral’s that have opportunities to reproduce. Where I live, spay and neuter programs have been so successful there is way more people looking for kittens than there are kittens. So I don’t think this is a good long term solution to too many cats. But every solution seems to come with potential problems attached. Human managed breeding included.
And I don’t agree that there is a clear line between a domestic cat and a wild cat….. Our cat friends have a long braided history of going back and forth between living independently and living with humans. Recently the remains of 6000 year old Near Eastern cats were found in a cave in Poland, alongside remains of European wild cats. The Near Eastern cats appear to have followed the rodents that followed human agriculture all on their own, or at least they had been eating rodents that ate grain, and not cooked human food, as is seen in cats a couple thousand years ago.
And in China there is remains of Asian Leopard Cats that are thousands of years old, that were also living on rodents that were feeding on human grain.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0147295
The main difference between domestic cats and various species of wildcats, seems to be that domestic cats naturally evolved an ability to make use of human affection, as a survival strategy. But large cats carefully raised by humans, seem to have the ability to learn how to become very domesticated very quickly. Messi the disabled cougar who lives like a house cat in Russia, is a great example of how flexible cats can be.
en.m.wikipedia.org
Another problem with all this anti hybrid stuff is that, various species of wild cats seem to naturally interbreed with our so called domestic cats, without any encouragement from us. I have seen kittens from a few unplanned Serval/ domestic opps litters. And pictures of street cats in India, with Bengal rosettes. This occasional natural hybridization of cats has been going on for thousands of years. It seems to be mostly human hubris that makes it a mission to prevent this.
The reality is, most Servals and Savannahs have been captive bred and exclusively living in a human managed environment much much longer than most random bred cats, who come from a long line of ancestors who evolved being free to come and go as the please. It seems hypocritical to advocate that all random bred cats are happier and safer indoors, but Servals who also live shorter lives, and generally die horrible deaths in the wild, are always being unfairly deprived of their right to roam…even if they have lived in captivity for many generations. I suspect the average random bred, so called “domestic” cat, is probably closer to being “wild” than the average captive bred Serval or Savannah- though a big captive cat with an active personality is likely to cause larger problems, and need more accommodations than a smaller cat.
Deciding to live with a big cat or a first or second generation hybrid does seem like a huge commitment and responsibility, and isn't something I would want to take on, but hopefully it is only a few people that don't know what they are getting into and find they can’t provide their pets with their best life. Education seems to be the best way to prevent this. But way too many of the rescue organizations trying to educate people mix in a bunch of hyperbole and misinformation with the parts that may be true, which really isn’t helpful. And a cat that has been living with humans for generations is not going to do well if it is released into the wild. Or kept in a little outdoor “rescue” enclosure with none of the human relationships it grew up with. I find that really upsetting and cruel.
