The lost cats of London

How a new law on microchips hopes to reunite wayward cats

By Lilith Foster-Collins

Image credit: Theo Burman

Image credit: Theo Burman

This is Meep.

Meep wandered into our South London house one spring evening, climbing in through the open skylight and settling himself down on my housemate’s bed.

When I came home a few hours later he was still there.

“There’s a kitten in my room and he won’t leave. Do you want to meet him,” is the best possible text one can receive on a dark Monday evening.

The bundle of tabby cuteness that awaited me had clearly already become very attached to my housemate, who was now Cat Dad. He followed Cat Dad around the house and cried when he left the room.

We mustn’t get attached, we repeated to ourselves as the whole house of five got a look in on the new resident.

The cat was shown the door (literally), and whilst curious about our overgrown garden, kept coming back in.

We decided to tough love it. He cried for hours at the door and the realisation set in that he wasn’t going anywhere. We let him back in.

Meep at his visit to the vet

Meep at his visit to the vet

The next day I took him to the vet. No microchip. I felt an immediate sense of dread - cats are much less likely to be reunited with their owner if they are not microchipped.

Louisa Ellis, Practice Manager at Paxton Vets Clifton, agrees that microchips are “very important” in reuniting lost cats, “it is very difficult without them”.

A microchip is a small chip around the size of a grain of rice, which is inserted under the cat’s skin, by a vet or a trained member of an animal welfare organisation, and gives each cat a unique code.

When a cat is lost, they can be scanned with a microchip scanner and matched to the owner’s contact details.

“When the [microchip] database is kept up to date it is great, but it can be frustrating when not,” Ellis said.

“Owners are delighted to get their beloved pets back. We use Facebook a lot to try and reunite animals.”

Microchips are so essential in reuniting lost cats that the government is making it compulsory for cats to be microchipped from 10 June 2024.

From that date, owners will be given 21 days to get chipped or face a fine of up to £500.

A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs said: “The introduction of mandatory microchipping will make it easier for lost or stray pet cats to be reunited with their owners and returned home safely.”

So why the legislation? A report on pet microchipping from animal welfare charity Battersea shows that microchipping rates are worryingly low.

In 2022, only two per cent of stray cats brought to Battersea were able to be reunited with their owners through a microchip.

Three out of five cats (59 per cent) brought to the centres were not microchipped at all.

Data from the 2024 PDSA Animal Wellbeing (PAW) Report revealed a similar issue in the wider cat population - 22% of the 8.9 million cats in England are not microchipped, approximately 2 million cats.

Meep is one of many cats in London without a microchip. Cat charity Cats Protection estimate there are around 500,000 pet cats in London that are not microchipped, around a third of all cats in London.

A spokesperson said: “That’s higher than the average across England where 27% of cats are potentially not microchipped.

“This could be for a range of reasons including vet capacity issues, cost of living, a greater proportion of cats being kept indoors and microchipping rates being slightly lower in certain groups like 18–24 year olds.”

Without a microchip, our task to find Meep’s owners was not going to be a simple one.

We mocked up posters to put around the neighbourhood and posted on local social media pages. Meanwhile Meep napped on Cat Dad’s bed.

Without microchips, lost cats may never find their owners. The story of one-year-old cat, Kina, was very similar to Meep’s.

Kina was found and brought to Battersea’s London centre, and it was clear she was someone's pet. However, because she had no microchip, staff were unable to trace where she had come from.

Kina ended up being relocated to a new loving home.

Rachel Saunders, Cattery Manager at Battersea, said: "When a microchipped cat is brought to us as a stray, we can usually orchestrate a joyful reunion, sparing heartache for owners.

“But for most stray cats we take in, there is no chip at all, leaving us unable to trace where they may have come from.”

Battersea warns that cat owners with microchips must also keep their contact details updated with new addresses and phone numbers.

"For most stray cats we take in, there is no chip at all."

Rachel Saunders, Cattery Manager at Battersea

Rachel added: “With greater responsibility from cat and dog owners to update microchip information, we can reunite many more pets.”

There is widespread support for mandatory microchipping, with RSPCA data showing that 75% of adults agree that mandatory microchipping will help to reduce the number of stray and abandoned cats, rising to 83% agreement amongst cat owners.

Animal abandonments have reached a three year high, with more than 20,000 reports in 2023

Alice Potter, cat welfare expert at the RSPCA said: “Not only will microchipping your cat mean that if they become lost, stolen, or injured, but we also hope that mandatory microchipping will help to tackle important cat welfare issues such as abandonments.”

Animal abandonment incidents have reached a three year high, according to the RSPCA, with the charity receiving 20,999 reports of an abandoned animal in 2023, a higher annual total than in 2020, 2021 and 2022.


Microchips have led to many reunions between cats and their owners.

Two-year-old Alfie was brought to Battersea’s London centre as a stray cat after a member of the public assumed he was lost. Because Alfie had a microchip, Battersea could quickly call his owner, and discovered that Alfie was not in fact lost. His family were able to collect him within an hour.

Six-year-old Simba was reunited with his family by the RSPCA, after they were called to a property in Ilford.

Animal rescue officer Nicola Thomas checked the cat for a microchip, and his owners were found to live just a mile away. Simba had been missing for a year, but thanks to his microchip he made it home safely.

“He is happy to be home,” said owner Rabia Ali.

“I can tell he is happy to be in the warmth with food and with people he recognises. He is so relieved.”

Image credit: RSPCA

After several weeks of posters and scouring missing cat online notice boards, and several false alarms, we finally acknowledged that we were not going to find Meep’s old owners.

Like Kina, Meep would need a new home.

After a tearful farewell, he is now living a beautiful life with his new family.

I have just received reports that he has caught his first mouse.

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