Air tag collar or no?

[CocoBean22]

We’ve got two outdoor/indoor cats who don’t go far but there is a big woods/fields behind our garden where the roam.

One of our cats has been missing for 3 days and we eventually found her hiding petrified of something that’s scared in the hedge a little way away from our garden. It’s been so stressful and not an experience I want to go through again.
I’m now looking at easy quick release air tag collars.
I worry about them getting caught up on trees or fences with the collars even though they are easy quick release, however the thought of not knowing where she was the last few days when she was missing was gut wrenching.
WWYD?
Any advice or recommendations greatly appreciated 🙏🏼 Thanks so much

I don’t have collars on my cats, far too dangerous I’m afraid. I can see why you’d think to but honestly, if it comes off easily enough/is easy enough to release to be safe, the cat will lose it regularly. If it’s not safe enough……. Well, enough said sadly.

I get you’re worried but I wouldn’t risk it.

If she goes missing again put your dirty laundry outside! They smell their family and home and, especially if close by like yours was, come back. Some Dreamies or smelly food work well too.

I'm really glad she’s back!

Collars are too risky for me, even the so-called quick release ones.

Plenty of cats go out with collars on, although mine don’t and I’ve never had a cat successfully keep a collar on. But for tracking the Tractive trackers I found better for dogs, I think they do a cat version

It is also the season for staying out all night if you’re a cat especially a young one, it’s warm and dry. She might have scared herself and not want to do it again

Our cat got lost and couldn’t make it home, the only reason we got him back was the tag on his collar, so for me the pros of collar vs no collar outweigh the risk. We have since added the ones with airtags and they work really well, we can’t fit a catflap and they’re the best for knowing if the cat is still out or hiding somewhere inside. However, you need to be in a high population area as airtags work by pinging off nearby iPhones. In the woods they would be completely useless so in your case you probably need to consider an actual tracker.

We have one cat with a Tractive and it's great. You can alter the collar clasp's sensitivity so it comes off with minimal effort if your cat's small or you're worried about it not coming off. And if it does come off the cat... well you just track it down! We've had to track the collar quite a lot... and are now on first name terms with a few of our neighbours while doing so.
I'd say the only downside is how often you have to charge them.

<looks at cute snoozing culprit>

We have an AirTag on our cat. There are much more accurate GPS trackers which cost more. It works well for us. He doesn’t wander far & we don’t have a cat flap- he’s never out for hours & doesn’t stay out overnight. His collars have come off a couple of times.

Our cat isn’t especially a roamer but I wouldn’t put a collar on any cat. Even the quick release ones can fail and I would be worried about him getting caught or injured. My neighbour recently got collars for his cats because someone was feeding them - after a few weeks they were off because one cat was constantly itching under it, and the other figured out how to get them off. (I found one in our garden which had “don’t feed me” on the tag!)

My parents cat has one. It’s not been an issue. All our shorthaired cats have worn collars. No issues, but they were not intrepid tree climbers. So the risk of it getting caught was low.

My boy has a Pet Tracer GPS and radio collar. We tried an AirTag first but it didn’t work as they have to be near other Apple devices.