Most of them can't, really, unless they're raised by a momcat who hunts.

Mine is an indoor cat now (we have lots of coyotes) but at a different house, when we would let him into the back yard, he would catch birds - including humming birds (which bummed me). And he wasn't raised by a hunting mom. He was just... a cat.

All cats have the hunting instinct, some more than others. But *killing* prey doesn't mean they eat it. I had a cat that would catch mice & bring them to her humans; sometimes they were alive. Luckily she'd take them to my roomie and leave them on HER bed. (Guess she could smell I don't eat meat.)

LOL ... I assume the not eating their prey part comes from the fact that they're already well fed....

Could be. But feral cats teach their kits how to kill & eat prey. Cats really do learn by observation. Probably if they're hungry enough they eventually figure it out but a lot of dumped animals starve.

We were babysitting my daughter's cat a few weeks ago & he managed to push out of a screened window. We were in a panic (coyotes!). He was out over 24 hrs before daughter found him hiding in a bush in our front yard. When she pulled him out he was shaking with fear, poor baby. Happy to be found!

It's a scary world out there. One of ours was left outside by a stupid former-friend petsitter and now she will *not* leave the house. Of course, she's 18 but the scare was about 10 years ago. We did have coyotes but there's been so much habitat destruction that I think they're gone now.

We're in a little city at the base of the San Gabriels in So. CA., with a "green space" immediately behind our back yard. It's a hiway for all sorts of wildlife-bears, deer, etc., all of which we see pretty frequently. We'll hear the coyotes howling on that slope and it can be a pretty scary sound.

It is scary; my sis lives in the boonies. OTOH, when I was a kid there were fewer than 4 billion humans on the planet and now there are 2x+ that many. The wild ones have nowhere to go. And cars still kill far more cats - and dogs - than any natural predators.

The coyotes are bold too- you'll see them in the streets in broad daylight. Husband saw one trotting down our street with a cat in its mouth at about 8 am one day... 😦 (Your cat sounds smart - he knows which side his kippers are buttered!)