Research overview: the anthropause and felid movement

The COVID-19 lockdowns created an unprecedented, sudden reduction in human activity dubbed the anthropause, and this overview examines what it revealed and may yet reveal about how cats respond to human presence. With fewer people on roads, trails, and in wild areas, anecdotal and emerging data suggested some cats moved more boldly, ventured closer to settlements, or expanded their use of space, while in places where people flooded into nature, wildlife may have been pushed back. The overview discusses how felids, being sensitive to human disturbance, are expected to relax their avoidance behaviors when human pressure falls, and how the anthropause offered a rare controlled glimpse of these dynamics. It frames the lockdown period as a natural experiment that sharpened understanding of the pervasive, often underestimated influence of everyday human activity on cat movement.