Out of their gourds, their demesne or both?
DEFRA also banned translucent plastic walls between pens, a previously common method of separation ... But again, DEFRA didn't consider that cats have five senses and decided that visual separation without aural separation was somehow beneficial.
DEFRA decided that translucency was a cat welfare issue, and tore up the previous regulations, imposed huge upheavals and expenses on older catteries for what appear to be no reason at all.
Where did DEFRA get the idea that cats would be irretreivably harmed if they were able to partially distinguish the shape of another cat through a translucent barrier?
A cat is not a solitary creature, and exhibits all forms of social interaction whether in the home, a neighbourhood or a colony. But it appears that DEFRA legislated for a universal standard on the ludicrous assumption that visually separating individuals from their own species was not only a good thing, but predecated on the belief that separation is an improvement in cat welfare. What's next are Cats Protection going to introduce a no French Window clause in their adoption forms just in case the cat looks out of the window? If you believe that every cat should be locked up and separated from it's own kind and nature, the only example of this is an artificially created "house cat" who is forced by it's owner to have no natural or external interactions. This is a tiny minority of cats, but DEFRA introduced a sensory deprivation regulation through wild speculation, fear and anthropomorphisation rather than any consideration of any cat's psychological wellbeing.