Research overview: free-ranging cats, disease and wildlife-human health links

Free-ranging domestic cats are reservoirs and vectors for pathogens affecting wildlife, other cats and humans, including the protozoan that causes toxoplasmosis and various feline viruses. This overview synthesises disease-ecology research on how outdoor cats shed and transmit pathogens into urban ecosystems, the risks to native wild felids and other wildlife from spillover, and the public-health dimension of cat-associated zoonoses. It examines how high-density fed colonies amplify transmission and how management intersects with One Health concerns. The synthesis frames disease as a major, sometimes underemphasised consequence of large free-ranging cat populations in human-dominated landscapes.