Hope Behind the Bars: Caring for Cats in US Shelters

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Guest Blog

A new study by cat care brand KittySpout has ranked all 50 states based on the number of cats their communities save each year.

Most studies simply look at the total number of cats saved and use that to form their rankings, which is unfair because states with more people have more shelters and more cats by default.

KittySpout's rankings calculate the number of cats saved per 100,000 residents. This gives an accurate picture of which state populations are saving the most cats relative to their size, and shows where people are doing the most to save the cats around them.

Top 15 states by cats saved per 100,000 residents:

Wyoming has been crowned America's most cat-obsessed state.

Its shelters saved 5,918 cats in 12 months, or 1,024 for every 100,000 residents, which is one cat savedfor every 98 people living there.

The Mountain West has swept the board. Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho and New Mexico take the top four places outright, and with Montana at 7th and Utah at 8th, six of the top eight are Mountain West states.

Across the US as a whole, the data shows 451.3 cats are saved across every 100,000 residents. Nationally, a cat leaves a US shelter alive every 21 seconds, which is 4,096cats a day and 1,494,995 over 12 months.

John Butterworth, Marketing Lead at KittySpout, commented on the findings:

"Every state in this top 15 is saving a lot more cats than the national average. It's a magnificent achievement worth shouting about. Shelter workers are some of the most dedicated people and their work often goes unrecognized. And, huge credit to the families saving these cats. Nearly a million and a half cats left American shelters alive last year. Not one of them walked out on their own."

What the ranking measures:

Saved means the cat left the shelter alive. That covers adoption, return to owner, transfer to another organization, and release back to a managed community-cat colony.
Population size is accounted for. Bigger states shelter more cats simply because more people live there. Counting per 100,000 residents strips out that advantage and gives a normalized value, showing which state’s residents and communities are saving the most cats.

Methodology:

The figures come from outcome data published by the Best Friends Animal Society Pet Lifesaving Dashboard, covering a rolling 12 months from October 2024 to September 2025 and pulled on 29th May 2026. All 3,884 US shelters reporting cat outcomes were included. Population figures are US Census ACS 5-Year Estimates for 2022. Each state figure is the total cats saved by all reporting shelters divided by state population, per 100,000 residents.