There is a chipmunk living under the back porch but my next door neighbor insists that the critter is living under her back deck. We watched the chipmunk run back and forth between her house and mine and are not sure where it lives.
I think the only reason the creature lives at all is because there are about half a dozen fewer cats on the block than there were a couple of years ago. Some of the cats died and some moved with their owners to new homes.
There are people who believe it is alright to let cats roam free but those cats are killing machines. There has been a new study that shows that they only bring home about 25% of what they kill. They eat some of what they kill but they leave a lot of it where they killed it.
Being a free range cat in St. Paul is not good for the cat either. Here are some statistics for St. Paul:
My Kitty cat
200 cats are killed annually in traffic
Life expectancy of a cat allowed to roam is only three to four years
Confined cats can live beyond 14 years
Over 1,200 cats are picked up each year by animal control
Roaming cats may be a nuisance by urinating and defecating in sandboxes and gardens
Outdoor cats are susceptible to injury or death from other predatory animals
Outdoor cats are predators to wildlife such as birds
Also see Domestic murders
I know some folks like to let their cat roam outside, but the stats you shared don’t lie. Indoor cats live longer! I would get too worried letting my cats out anyway haha.