Every summer we ask the same simple question, and every summer the answer tells us something about where TNR is actually making an impact, and where it still has work to do. This year, we heard from 1,181 caretakers across the country, and the picture they painted is a real one: encouraging in places, and a reminder in others of just how much this work depends on the season.

The Question

Our mid-year Community Cat Colony Sentiment Survey asks caretakers one thing: is the number of community cats you feed growing, staying stable, or getting smaller? It’s a blunt instrument on purpose. We’re not asking people to estimate exact headcounts or track intake-outcome data. We’re asking them to tell us, in their own gut sense, which direction their colony is heading. That sentiment is a window into how TNR is actually playing out on the ground, colony by colony.

This year, that question reached 1,181 caretakers.

The Results

Put together, 61% of caretakers say their colonies are stable or shrinking. That’s the outcome we’re aiming for, since it means the cats in that colony are largely fixed and the population isn’t reproducing faster than attrition.

The remaining 39% who report growth are the ones we should be paying closest attention to. A growing colony almost always means unfixed cats are still in the mix, whether from new arrivals, unaltered strays joining the group, or gaps in trapping coverage. That’s not a failure story. It’s a map, and it tells us where the next round of TNR effort needs to go.

How This Compares to Last Summer

Numbers mean more with context, so here’s how this July stacks up against July 2025.

That’s a real shift, and we’re not going to bury it. Growing colonies made up a bigger share of responses this July than last, while stable and shrinking colonies both slipped. It’s a different story than the one we told in our January check-in, when caretakers reported the strongest stability numbers in our survey’s history.

That contrast is exactly the point. When we compared January 2025 to January 2026, growing colonies dropped from 33% to 28%. Now, comparing July to July, growing colonies climbed instead. Put the two side by side and a pattern emerges: January consistently reads calmer, and July consistently reads busier. That tracks with what most caretakers already know firsthand. Kitten season peaks in spring and summer, new litters show up faster than any trapping schedule can keep pace with, and by the time TNR catches up, a colony that looked stable in January can look like it’s growing by midsummer.

Seasonality isn’t the only factor at play, either. This July’s respondent pool was more than four times the size of last July’s, and a bigger, broader pool naturally captures a wider range of experiences than a smaller one does. That’s a good reminder of what this survey actually measures. It’s not a cat count. It’s how people feel about the colonies they’re caring for, and that feeling can vary from caretaker to caretaker regardless of experience level. That’s exactly why growing this survey’s reach matters: the more caretakers we hear from, the more this data reflects the full picture rather than whoever happened to be paying attention that season.

That doesn’t mean the increase doesn’t matter. It means our winter check-in and our summer check-in are measuring two different points in the same cycle, and the real question isn’t which one is “right.” It’s what the sector does with a July that runs warmer than we’d like, which we get into below.

Where the Responses Came From

This wasn’t a regional snapshot. Caretakers responded from 48 U.S. states, plus international respondents feeding colonies in Canada, the UK, Italy, New Zealand, and beyond. That’s a wider reach than last July, when responses came from 40 states. Michigan, New York, and California led in volume both years, so the growth in participation came from filling in the rest of the map, not a shift in where our core audience lives.

The regional pattern is where “growing” versus “stable” gets interesting. States like Oklahoma and Georgia reported some of the strongest stabilization numbers in the survey, with the vast majority of their caretakers saying colonies are holding steady or shrinking. Washington and North Carolina, meanwhile, both reported growth above the national average, with roughly half of caretakers in each state seeing their colonies get bigger. That kind of regional spread tells us something important: TNR progress isn’t happening at the same pace everywhere. Some states have largely gotten ahead of their colony growth, while others are still working to catch up. That means funders and practitioners alike should consider targeting their focus region by region rather than spreading resources evenly across the map, with the most attention going to the states where growth is outpacing stabilization.

What This Means Going Forward

A few things stand out as we look forward.

This year’s numbers reaffirm what we already know about seasonality. Summer readings run warmer on growth, winter readings run cooler, and this year’s data lines up with that pattern. It’s a good reminder for how we talk about these results, and for when caretakers and funders should realistically expect to see the biggest gains from a given round of TNR.

But seasonality doesn’t let us off the hook. An 8-point jump in “growing” is worth taking seriously on its own terms, whatever the calendar has to do with it. If anything, this is a good moment for the whole field to refocus on the basics: spay/neuter access is still the lever that moves these numbers, and it’s the one piece of the equation that can outpace kitten season if we invest in it consistently rather than catching up after the fact. Next July’s numbers will tell us whether that refocus happened.

Growth is concentrated, not universal. The caretakers reporting growing colonies aren’t spread evenly. They cluster around specific gaps: newly discovered colonies, areas without consistent trapper coverage, and regions like Washington and North Carolina where intake of new cats appears to be outpacing spay/neuter capacity. That’s where outreach, mobile clinics, and targeted TNR sprints will do the most good heading into the fall.

Self-reported data has limits, and we’re accounting for that. A caretaker’s sense of “growing” versus “stable” is subjective, shaped by everything from how long they’ve been trapping to how closely they’re tracking the colony day to day. We treat that as a reason for humility in how precisely we read the numbers, not a reason to discount the overall trend.

The Bottom Line

Six in ten caretakers are seeing their colonies stabilize or shrink, even in the busiest stretch of kitten season. That’s the result of thousands of hours of trapping, thousands of surgeries, and caretakers who show up every day whether or not anyone’s counting. The other four in ten are telling us exactly where, and when, to focus next.

We run this survey every January and July, and the comparison only gets more useful the longer we keep it up. Want to be the first to know when the January 2027 survey goes live, along with the results as soon as they’re in? Subscribe to our newsletter and we’ll make sure you don’t miss it.