"If it is loose it is feral!
Brent"
I disagree. Maybe my situation is somehow radically different than that of you and other posters in this thread, but I grew up in a sub division of about forty homes. This division was about 3 miles outside of Sheridan, WY, a town of 13,000 or so folks. The smallest plot in the division was about three acres, most plots averaged 5-6. Ours was the largest in the division with nearly ten acres, with deep ravines on both sides of our house than led into one ravine. Various hawks, herds of mule deer, squadrons of grouse and pheasants, and even a few reclusive red foxes spent time or lived on our property.
We had three cats, all now passed on. Two males with all claws, and one female declawed in the front (whom was the most successful hunter of the three). All were spayed/neutered, all were kept up on their yearly shots, and all were collared and tagged with the rabies vaccination, the contact information of our vet, our contact information and the cat's name.
All three were happy indoor/outdoor cats. When they wanted in, we let them in. When they wanted out, we let them out. When they wanted us to open the door so they could sit at the threshold and ponder their indoor/outdoor duality, we laughed at our silly zen kitties. They usually spent the night indoors (but not always), and they always spent weekdays outside while we were at school or work.
Our cats brought home loads of mice. They occasionally scored big, bringing back water snakes, wild rabbits, and the occasional robin or meadowlark. These were rarities; between three cats we would only see about a dozen non-rodent trophies on the doorstep each year. Granted, there were probably kills that we never saw, but I do not believe for a second that they approached the level of "100 songbirds each year per feline" devastation previously mentioned in this thread. Our cats were primarily rodent extermination experts.
They never brought back any hawks, deer, grouse, pheasants, turkeys or red foxes. Much to my chagrin, because how cool would THAT have been?
More importantly, our cats were never shot, killed, captured, tortured or otherwise culled by any of our neighbors. Why? Because almost all of the people in the sub division also had dogs and cats, and they all let them spend time both indoors and out. Dogs were almost universally held indoors or kenneled by everyone, but there were a few exceptions. Cats were almost universally allowed to roam outside as they pleased, with a few exceptions. Our division was a close-knit community, and we all understood that we all had animals running around. We knew each others pets (usually by name, if not who they actually belonged to). Nobody raised a fuss, nobody shot somebody else's animals, and nobody sued over anything.
My best friend was attacked and recieved ER medical attention when he brought a mis-delivered piece of mail to his next door neighboor, who kept a dog fenced inside the property. My friend's family did not sue, and they did not request that the dog be put down.
Our female cat was attacked and ravaged by a loose dog from one of our immediate neighbors. Several vital organs were pierced or damaged, and her liver was torn into seven separate pieces. She spent two weeks with the vet who removed the smallets pieces of liver and allowed the two largest pieces to rejoin and heal. She outlived both of our males. It cost my parents a good sum of money when the bill came. We did not sue him, we did not ask for recompense, and we did not shoot his dog the next time it wandered onto our property. We understood that we allowed our cats to roam, and we understood that he allowed his dog to roam, and we understood that this was a rare, isolated bad situation that occurred one time, and both our cat and his dog roamed free for another seven years without altercation until his dog died. Our female finally died of old age about four years ago.
"If it is loose it is feral"? No sir, not in our neighborhood. If it was loose (dog or cat) then it probably belonged to someone, and if you had a problem with it you didn't shoot it, you sat down with your neighbor face-to-face and came to an agreement of some sort.
At least, that's how we did it in Wyoming, in my neighborhood. Call me crazy.
I remarried in 1989 and figured that decent woman oughta have a decent home--so I built one. Call it a 1,400 sq-ft hunting lodge with wall-to-wall carpet and air conditioning. Only two minor plumbing repairs in fifteen years, so I did pretty good work. By the time I was done, though, I had my left thumb pretty much beaten into submission. 
