The more I look at, the more convinced I am that we’re in for a cat population explosion all over the US.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_storm “A “perfect storm” is an expression that describes an event where a rare combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically.“)
I can tell myself that everything in the news and blogged about shelters being overrun with kittens is the same thing that happens every year, until they get specific about how it’s worse this year, especially when they quote actual numbers.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-animal-shelters-overrun-cats-2015-officials-article-1.2298368
“Close to 10,000 cats have come into Animal Care Centers of NYC, the non-profit contracted by the city to handle homeless animals. That’s at least 1,000 more cats than this same time last year.”
What really strikes me is that’s a 10% increase and, on average, CLKI’s are up 10% from last year.
Here’s another — http://wkrn.com/2015/07/06/despite-90-adoptions-williamson-animal-control-still-overcrowded
Someone did predict a cat population explosion from global warming, but they did it as a joke. And that was in 2007. I don’t see anything funny about it, except maybe “the importance of neutering and spading”
http://www.thespoof.com/spoof-news/us/26250/global-warming-causes-cat-population-explosion-kittens-being-born-due-to-late-season-breeding-thanks-balmy-weather
Here’s a more regional view. Looks like there’s more of a spike on the West Coast than East Coast. Except for Wilmington, NC. (Side note, their spike started last year, though. I suspect that’s something else going on there. I should look into that.)
I’m looking more closely at the CL data to see if there might be some explanation in a change in CL or something I’ve done wrong but I can’t find anything . For example, one of the sharpest spikes was Chicago. As with most places, the count for “dog” ads stays about constant, but the number “kittens” hits went from 70 to 141 in one week. They look like they’re almost all kittens needing homes and nothing to show any one rescue group is flooding CL.
And Eugene is about the same way, dog ads about 250 every week, but kittens going from the teens in Jan, up to 53 the first week of July, 72 last weekend, 76 right now, almost all kittens looking for homes. Last year the peak was 51, and it didn’t get that high until October.

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