This is Figaro.
Meet my cat. I would have named him Bartholomew, had the Gods been willing, but someone else got the pleasure of naming him Figaro the day I met him. It is a long story that is often pulled out at family gatherings and such, but suffice it to say, he was a stray we took in.
What exactly, you might be wondering, does my cat have to do with the environment and sustainability?
There are two points of interest I’d like to draw your attention to. According to a 2013 Smithsonian article, “feral cats kill billions” or small mammals and birds to stay alive. As house cats as we know them are actually an invasive species in these parts, this upsets the natural balance of the ecosystem.
The best solution I have heard, short of finding homes for all these cats, is to spay or neuter the existing population so that there is a smaller and smaller population with every generation, and so that the cat’s impact on native wildlife is diminished.
Believe it or not, domestic pets pose their own threat to the environment. I found a 2017 article that asked readers to think of their pet’s carbon ‘paw’ print.
The article delved into how what you feed your pets matters. All creatures need to eat, and the amount of land it took to grow your pet’s food over a lifetime adds up. A lot of this land has been deforested and repurposed for agriculture. According to the article, “Dogs and cats are responsible for a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by animal agriculture.”
It’s something to think about next time you feed Fido.
