Most people want to protect the environment so researchers at Cornell University wanted to test how people judged their neighbor’s sustainability. The researchers created two identical profiles of a “green” property with a small lawn, low pesticide usage and solar panels. The difference? One version had an indoor cat and the other had an outdoor cat.

The researchers found that participants who didn’t own cats negatively judged property owners with an outdoor cat and considered them less likely to engage in environmentally-friendly behavior. That’s because many people see outdoor cats are harmful to birds.

So the next time you’re trying to protect the environment, keep your cat indoors. That way even people who don’t like cats can’t say anything about your cat if it’s safely indoors and away from birds.

To read more about how indoor cats are judged better for the environment than outdoor cats, click here.

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