Every year on 27 October, Cats Protection marks National Black Cat Day, its celebration of black and black-and-white cats. The day exists for a reason. In a 2025 survey of 40 UK rescue centres by Agria Pet Insurance, 63% said black cats are the hardest colour to rehome, and 40% said they take more than 90 days longer to find a home than cats of other colours. Almost half (48%) put this down to the belief that black cats bring bad luck.
Individual rescues tell the same story. In 2024, the RSPCA’s Canterbury and District branch found its black cats waited an average of 29 days for a new home, compared with nine days for grey tabbies.
It can seem strange that ideas from the Middle Ages still decide which animals get a home today. But superstitions are sticky. Understanding where they come from is the first step to letting them go.
A humanist approach to animal welfare
Humanists think we should make ethical, rational, and informed decisions about how we treat animals, just as we do with the other moral questions we face in daily life. Humanists UK endorses the World Organisation for Animal Health’s Five Freedoms for animals under human control, including freedom from fear and distress, and we want to see them implemented and protected in full in law or policy by governments across the UK and the world.
For a cat waiting in a rescue centre, those freedoms are best met in a loving home. And deciding which cat to give that home to is exactly the kind of choice that should rest on evidence and empathy, not on omens.
Where the superstitions come from
Cats have lived alongside humans for thousands of years, and people have projected all sorts of meanings onto them. In ancient Egypt, cats were honoured, and the goddess Bastet was shown with a cat’s head. In medieval and early modern Europe, the picture darkened. Black animals became linked with night, secrecy, and the Devil.
A popular story says it all began with Vox in Rama, a letter issued by Pope Gregory IX in 1233, which is often said to have ordered the killing of cats across Europe. The real document does describe a black cat in an alleged heretical ritual, but historians have found no order to kill cats in it, and no evidence of a mass cull. Myths about black cats, it turns out, have attracted myths of their own.
The witch trials did more lasting damage. In England, accused witches were said to keep ‘familiars’: small animals, including cats, believed to do the Devil’s work. At one of the earliest English witch trials, in Chelmsford in 1566, Elizabeth Francis was said to have kept a cat called Sathan. It is interesting to note that her cat was not black, but described as “white-spotted”, so the first recorded so-called witch’s cat was not actually a black cat.
In the witch hunts of the 1640s led by Matthew Hopkins, the self-styled ‘Witchfinder General’, the animals that people lived with were used as evidence against them. An older woman’s cat could become proof of guilt.
Yet the superstition has never agreed with itself. In much of Britain, a black cat crossing your path has long been thought lucky. In Scotland, a strange black cat arriving at your door was said to bring prosperity. Sailors prized black ship’s cats, and fishermen’s wives kept them at home in the hope of bringing their husbands back safely. Black cats are lucky in Japan, too, while in the USA and much of continental Europe they are seen as a bad omen.
When the same animal is lucky in Whitby and unlucky in Wisconsin, the belief is telling us about the people doing the believing, not about the cat. Superstitions like these grow out of coincidence, fear, and our very human habit of seeing patterns and intentions where there are none: the same habits that, as we explored in our history of humanism and things that go bump in the night, have kept ghosts and spirits alive for centuries.
Popular culture keeps the link alive. Black cats are a fixture of Halloween decorations, and Agria found that online searches for ‘black cat luck’ were up 133% on the year before.
Why old fears shouldn’t decide who gets a home
Few people today would say they truly believe a cat can curse them. But a superstition doesn’t need to be firmly believed to change what people do. A half-joking hesitation, a feeling that a black cat is ‘a bit spooky’, or a decision to pick the tabby ‘just in case’ is enough to keep a black cat waiting week after week.
That wait has real costs. Even the best rescue pen is no substitute for a home, and many cats find life in care stressful. Every extra week one cat spends waiting is a week its space can’t go to another animal in need, at a time when 83% of the rescues in Agria’s survey took in more cats than usual and 85% are worried about their future.
‘Indifference is the invincible giant of the world.’
A humanist approach to choosing a companion animal is simple: look at the evidence in front of you. Coat colour tells you nothing about a cat’s temperament, its health, or how much affection it will give. What matters is whether this particular cat, with its own personality and needs, is right for your home, and whether you can give it a good life for many years to come.
The evidence on colour and adoption isn’t completely settled. Studies from different shelters and countries have produced conflicting results, and black cats are among the most common cats in rescue, so there are simply more of them waiting. But that cuts both ways: if black cats are so common, there’s a good chance the right cat for you is one of them. And whatever the numbers say, ‘bad luck’ should never be the reason any animal is passed over.
As a society, we long ago stopped accepting superstition as a reason to treat people unfairly. Our laws are no longer built on omens, and nobody goes on trial for keeping a cat. The choices we make about animals deserve the same clear thinking. They depend on us entirely, and we owe them decisions based on what is true and what is kind.
Not just superstition
Superstition isn’t the only thing working against black cats. Much of today’s adoption starts online, and black cats can be hard to photograph well. In a dim rescue pen or on a phone camera, a black cat can look like a shadow with eyes, and its expressions are harder to read. Rescues have also reported people dismissing black cats as not ‘Instagrammable’ enough. The RSPCA’s Canterbury branch was having none of it:
‘In truth, black cats won’t bring you bad luck… we disagree and believe all these cats look purr-fectly photogenic!’
Natalie Archer, RSPCA Canterbury and District Branch (2024)
Many rescues now take care to photograph black cats in natural light and against lighter backgrounds, so their personalities come through. If you’re browsing adoption listings, read the description as carefully as you look at the picture, or visit in person. The cat that looks like a dark smudge on your screen may be the most affectionate animal in the building.
Picture perfect
As for the claim that black cats don’t photograph well, we can confidently file that under myths too. Just look at these beautiful photos taken by Humanists UK staff of the black cats they share their homes with.
Notes
For further comment or information, media should contact Humanists UK Head of Press and Campaign Communications Nathan Stilwell at press@humanists.uk or phone 020 3675 0959 (media only).
Read more about our work on animal welfare, including our campaign on the treatment of farm animals used in religious slaughter.
Humanists UK is the national charity working on behalf of non-religious people. Powered by over 150,000 members and supporters, we advance free thinking and promote humanism to create a tolerant society where rational thinking and kindness prevail. We provide ceremonies, pastoral care, education, and support services benefitting over a million people every year and our campaigns advance humanist thinking on ethical issues, human rights, and equal treatment for all.