Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to the New South Wales Cat Protection Society, climate induced warmer weather is causing cats to have more unwanted kittens.
Longer breeding seasons, more kittens: are cats reacting to climate change?
When Kristina Vesk started working at the Cat Protection Society of NSW in 2006, she rarely saw kittens in winter. Now warmer weather means cats are breeding all year round, increasing the numbers of unwanted kittens and the threat to native wildlife from strays and feral cats.
Ms Vesk, the society’s chief executive, said there used to be weeks from June to September when the shelter saw very few, if any, kittens. But with the climate changing and temperatures rising, it seems cats are increasingly on heat.
“For the past three years, I don’t think we’ve experienced a full week at any time of year where we don’t have at least a couple of kittens in our care,” Ms Vesk said. “Kitten ‘season’ has grown longer and longer as we keep having … enough warm and sunny days in winter that make cats think it’s a good time to start breeding.”
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Vanessa Barrs, a Professor of Feline Medicine at the University of Sydney, said most cats do not breed in winter to conserve energy and help kittens survive. But breeding can be influenced by photoperiod, the number of available daylight hours, and “cats artificially exposed to 12 hours of light indoors … can be induced to breed all year round”, she said.
Is building wind turbines and solar installations really the most effective way to reduce the number of unwanted kittens? Or might it be more effective to run a TV campaign, encouraging pet owners to be responsible about having their animals desexed?
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Next: Dogs and cats living together!
To wit:
Clearly we are headed for disasters of biblical proportions
What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Exactly
Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling.
Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes.
The dead rising from the grave!
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
When Noah filled the ark, he started with two cats, two mice and two dogs. He landed with 50 cats, 1,000 mice and two dogs. 🙂
You know….the Bible predicts all kinds of global turmoil in the future and people mock it. But then Marcott and gang predict global turmoil in the future and people
take it seriouslymock it. 🙂 Never mind.Wow, anecdotal evidence from Kristina Vesk a worker from a cat shelter is impressive scientific proof of not only an increase in the cat population but also the increase being due to climate change. To bolster this claim there is also anecdotal evidence of a welcome decrease in the mice population in the area. This however may be due to the local hardware store running sales specials on mouse traps. We are still awaiting reports on how the mice feel about all these changes.
Well, she did say “For the past three years, I don’t think we’ve experienced…” so that should prove to you that her conclusions are based on long term, scientific studies and geometric logic.
Oh, let’s see about an alternate theory: People have less disposable income, so are more likely to forego having their cats neutered/spayed. The result is more kittens.
No need to neuter if you spay all the females. Leave the boys alone.
Also, there may have been a population increase with more people living in the area and owning cats, a percentage of which were not spayed or neutered.
cats can be hidden from Landlords easily
they dont have to be registered or chipped(some places starting to)
they dont eat much,(supplement neighbours dog food and native species) get left while owners holiday
while a dog needs kennels
theyre allowed to roam to crap all over the place while every dog owner got to clean up carry a poopy bag etc
and theyre NOT being desexed.
and btw NSW is NOT know for ever getting that cold in winter.. especially urban areas anyway
“Is building wind turbines and solar installations really the most effective way to reduce the number of unwanted kittens?”
We have a winner for red herring of the day!
Amazing what that .1 degree can do.
De-sexed??????
Sounds painful.
On the other hand, there hasn’t been any warming at all for 18 years. So these cats are responding to warming that hasn’t happened.
The last time I checked, the cats don’t live in the upper layer of the troposphere.
Cats don’t live in the ocean , either…last time I checked….
We have a NEW winner for red herring of the day!
They’re model cats responding to model warming.
Good grief!
Everyone is just positioning for a cut of the carbon tax money at this point. next
Easy solution …
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/508/3692/1600/That%20wasn't%20chicken.jpg
In France they have to sell skinned rabbits with the head, feet, and tail still attached. I thought this was strange until I found out that people used to sell skinned cats as rabbits. Apparently a properly prepared house cat tastes and looks like a rabbit. So not only an easy solution, but tasty as well.
I recall a couple of years ago there was a news item about global warming causing a super abundance of cats in Germany and a catastrophic shortage of Bulgarian prostitutes. Go figure.
So — the number of cats was up, but the number of cat houses down? Huh.
That’s why so many cats are out street-walking.
Trump says those are pussy cats.
Feral cats can be good rabbit hunters. I believe Australia still has a rabbit problem?
As well as cats, mice and other non-native rodents and TV and sporting celebrities they all need de-sexing.
Feral cats are a problem, too. They eat many of the smaller native animals. If we could get them to concentrate on taking cane toads, we might solve at least one problem, but I think they are a bit too intelligent to try that.
yes they can get the odd bunny
but bunnys and the major cat pop arent in the same spots:-(
and we still have a LOT of rabbits.
in site of calici and myxo releases
Australia be warned; kittens could become the new rabbits…
Australia be warned; kittens could become the new rabbits…
Only if cats start going naturally vegetatian.
“The average TV commercial of sixty seconds has one hundred and twenty half-second clips in it, or one-third of a second. We bombard people with sensation. That substitutes for thinking.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Yeah, but Bradbury didn’t know about Roku, Netflix or streaming devices that eliminate all commercials or allow people to zip past them. We’re becoming bombardless.
You got that right, and don’t forget Ad-blockers on blogsites!
This might be the first truly positive feedback mechanism found in the science of Anthropomorphic Global Warming.
Q: What are all of these excess kittens going to do with themselves?
A: Push AGW theories.
It is happening already …
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/the-truth-about-climate-change-as-told-by-dapper-kittens/
CATAGW … Cats Advancing Theories of Anthropomorphic Global Warming.
Uncontrolled feedback …
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/uncyclopedia/images/7/76/Tastykittens.jpg
Cheers,
Thomas
Oh my word…I would SO play in a box full of that for days on end! Puppies too….
pffft, even without artificial light they can breed all but 1-2 months of the year. In our modern age for many cats this is now year round because of LIGHTS not warming. The same is true for many animals. chickens for instance will not lay many eggs in winter because of low light conditions and if you add the light they can produce well right through the winter. Temp is not known to be a factor, it is the light.
The warm freaks want no more lights, too, you realize.
Solar powered lights are the go…
“Ms Vesk, the society’s chief executive, said there used to be weeks from June to September when the shelter saw very few, if any, kittens. But with the climate changing and temperatures rising, it seems cats are increasingly on heat.”
Weird….according to others, the number of cats and dogs in Australia is dropping-
http://pickle.ninemsn.com.au/2015/10/01/12/40/australia-s-pet-population-declining
Maybe she needs to explain to people where kittens come from, because there’s a simple procedure that prevents cats making more of them….
I am reminded..
Mark Twain, in 1875, anticipated the current insanity and delusion of the ‘scientific community’ with
his wonderful essay “Some Learned Fables, for Good Old Boys and Girls, in Three Parts”. It closes with..
“There were vulgar, ignorant carpers, of course, as there always are and always will be; and naturally
one of these was the obscene Tumble-Bug. He said that all he had learned by his travels was that
science only needed a spoonful of suppositions to build a mountain of demonstrated fact out of; and
that for the future he meant to be content with the knowledge that nature had made free to all
creatures and not go prying into the august secrets of the Diety.”
An entertainting read and perhaps an anchor back into the current reality.
Meaux
Supply and demand; will Chinese food get cheaper?
Quick non-climate related story. Years ago, sometime back in the ’70s, my aunt and uncle went to a Chinese restaurant. It took a long time for their food to come and my uncle joked that they were probably trying to catch the cat. Shortly afterwards the doors to the kitchen sprang open and a cat came running out followed by a chef with a cleaver. Of course, it was pure coincidence (the cat belonged to the owners), but when the evening was over, they got a photo of themselves with the chef holding the cat. Wish I knew where that photo was now.
Just in case somebody hasn’t heard this…
Question: will all females come into heat more often with global warming? If so, I think it’s time for separate bedrooms.
This id brand NEW!! Headline – Global Warming aka Climate Change affects the earth’s rotation. The increased ‘photoperiod” which causes more cats to come in ‘heat’ [get it?] must have resulted from Global Warming slowing the earth’s rotation speed! Finally, real news!
Also the increase in whale population has led to massive sea level rises as their massive bodies displace the water around them ,time for the Japanese to do some research into the affects of carbon pollution on whales .
Then Greenpeace will help by herding the whales towards the research ships .
All that extra Co2 acts like a sail which slows the earths rotation !
Also the real reason for sea levels rising is due to the increase in whale population ,their massive bodies are displacing the sea causing the rise .
Time for the Japanese to do some research on the affects of increased Co2 levels on whales and the subsequent sea level rise .
Because this research is carbon pollution related Greenpeace can help out by herding the whales towards the research ships (everyone wins) .
“At The Sydney Morning Herald we are passionate about giving you independent, quality journalism …”.
=======================
That is the proud boast of the rag where this garbage, and a lot more of the same, was published.
The SMH along with its Melbourne stablemate The Age were once the quality newspapers in Australia.
They have both gone tabloid along the lines of the National Enquirer.
This story is complete bollocks. The increase in cat population is just part of their master plan. Cats have succeeded in taking over the Internet. Now they increase production. Total world domination to follow.
Why don’t progressives ever argue that we should license all cats, they must be spayed unless you have the proper breeding permits, and all must be tatooed so the owners can be found and fined if the cat is not taken care of. After all, regs are the way to fix everything. Regulate cats. Problem solved.
Stop the press, CSIRO head has announced that climate science is more like a religion .