> Domestic housecats are naturally extant only in the Middle East That's not really true - in most of europe, the native wild cats and domestic housecats are c

> Domestic housecats are naturally extant only in the Middle East That's not really true - in most of europe, the native wild cats and domestic housecats are closely related and interbreed. see e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wildcat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wildcat (Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Central and Eastern Europe to the Caucasus). Many of the types of domestic cat found across europe were already bred in antiquity as well. So it's not that clear-cut, and local wildlife has adapted quite well to it.