Three types of cat:
House cat; we have two. Moogie, 7 YO Spayed female and Gordon, neutered 18 YO male.
Barn cats, we have one. 8 YO neutered male, who HATES the indoors.
Feral cats, definitely not welcome, though a neighbor's BARN cat sometimes visits, and Eyeball is welcome to have all the mice, voles, ground squirels, and gophers he can talk Purrsecuted into sharing.
At a $25 drop-off fee at the county shelter, feral cats do not get taken in...but a STRAY is another matter, and if it is feral, you know it pretty quick.
General rule of thunb, everybody checks with the neighbors if they see a strange cat or dog running around the area.
"Feral cats, definitely not welcome, though a neighbor's BARN cat sometimes visits, and Eyeball is welcome to have all the mice, voles, ground squirels, and gophers he can talk Purrsecuted into sharing."
I live in a suburban neighbourhood with an adjacent wooded area. I don't worry so much about the rodents they take, since most of them breed like, well, rodents, and don't appear to be in any danger of disappearing. Many species of songbird, OTOH, have a lot of pressures on them already in terms of habitat destruction, and they don't need the additional mortality of domestic cats killing them.
I had a cat we took in as a stray, who had obviously lived by his wits for a while. That cat was a deadly hunter of all small animals - I think his extra toes on his front paws helped him, he used them almost like an opposable thumb. In his defense, though, as far as we could tell he ate everything he killed, undoubtedly picking up a variety of parasites in the process.
I wouldn't have much of a problem with killing feral cats on sight, except for how can you be sure if a given cat is feral or domestic? I suppose owners could put collars on their domestic outdoor cats. Any new cat I get will probably be strictly a house cat, in any case. Indoor cats don't get fleas and parasites, they don't get into fights, and they don't get run over.