Climate Change and Community Cats

Many of your know that I drive back and forth from Vermont to Massachusetts every week in order to visit my mother. So I get to spend a lot of time in the car listening to podcasts of all kinds. During my drive last week, I heard several references to this very concerning article in the New York Times about the decline of the insect population as our climate gets warmer.

Since I was listening to a series of investment and health podcasts, I found it very interesting that this same thread was in all of the podcasts. Much of the conversation turned to decreasing fertility rates in the insect population, but also in other species as well. For instance, human fertility has dropped substantially in the last 20 years.

So this got me thinking about some things, especially as we are spending millions of dollars on studies to see how TNR affects overall community cat populations around the country. I’m wondering: Will a decrease in our cat populations just happen anyway, due to global warming? Are we seeing smaller litters? More compromised ones? If that isn’t the case and cats seem to be resistant to the global warming changes that other species seem to be facing, why is that?

In general, as we have analyzed different options in communities with cat issues, we have usually had three options: TNR, Trap and Remove, or do nothing. In my opinion, “do nothing” has of course never been a real option, but now all this new information on global warming and the related decline of animal populations has me wondering and worried. I’m not quite sure what to make of it all.

What do you think? Let’s start a conversation — visit our Facebook page to let me know your take on all of these issues and how they might (or might not) affect community cats and our work with them.