The data presented below is from PetRescue.com.au and spans from 1 January 2022 to 30 June 2026. Figures reflect listings and adoptions made through the PetRescue platform by member organisations. They are not a full census of animal welfare activity in Queensland and do not include animals rehomed outside the platform.
General caveats (apply to all charts)
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Figures include cats and dogs only; other species are excluded.
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State is based on the state recorded on the listing, not the state in which the listing organisation is located. Some pets may have been in the care of an organisation based in another state, but located with a foster carer in NSW
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Quarterly figures may be revised in future extracts if underlying records are updated or corrected after the fact.
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"Other" includes vet-listed pets, owner-to-owner (Home2Home) listings, and any group with no recorded organisation type. Where this category appears negligible in the chart, it may still represent a meaningful number of records at certain points; refer to the underlying data file for exact values.
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Because pound transfer and shelter transfer both involve movement of an animal from one organisation to another, an individual cat could in principle appear as an intake event for more than one organisation type across its journey (for example, transferred from a pound to a rescue group). Each listing is counted once, at the point it was listed, so this does not create double-counting within this chart, but it means the two panels are not independent populations of animals.
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Two features of the Queensland data are worth flagging as distinct from Victoria and New South Wales: council pound organisations contribute a negligible share of listings on the platform in Queensland (Chart 2 and Chart 3), and cat intake source recording remains substantially incomplete for shelters and councils even in the most recent quarters, unlike the near-complete recording seen in Victoria and New South Wales by 2025 and 2026 (Chart 4 and Chart 5).
Chart 1: Pets listed and adopted by age cohort, quarterly
This chart shows quarterly volumes of cats, kittens, dogs and puppies listed and adopted via PetRescue in Queensland, split into four cohorts: kittens and puppies (under 6 months) and cats and dogs (6 months and over).
Key patterns
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Kitten listings and adoptions follow a broadly seasonal pattern similar to other states, but the pattern is less sharply defined than in Victoria or New South Wales, with peaks and troughs occurring in varying quarters across different years rather than consistently in the same quarter each year.
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Kitten listings were highest at the very start of the period (around 1,690 in Q1 2022), declined over 2022 and 2023 to a low of around 510 in Q3 2023, then recovered gradually through 2024 and 2025 to reach around 1,470 to 1,520 in Q1 and Q2 2025. The most recent quarters (2026) sit below the 2022 starting point.
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Cat (6 months and over) listings have trended upward over the period, particularly from 2024 onward, moving from a range of around 700 to 900 per quarter in 2022 and 2023 to around 1,000 to 1,190 per quarter through 2024 to 2026.
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Dog listings have remained comparatively stable across most of the period, generally in the 800 to 1,000 range, with a notable peak of around 1,325 in Q3 2025 before returning to a more typical level.
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Puppy volumes are comparatively small throughout, generally in the 500 to 820 range, without a strong long-term trend.
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Adoption volumes closely track listing volumes across all four cohorts and time periods.
Caveat
The decline in kitten listings across 2022 to 2023 and subsequent recovery is a larger and longer-running movement than typical quarter-to-quarter seasonal variation. As with any multi-year shift, it is worth checking whether this reflects genuine change in kitten intake and rehoming, a change in which organisations were listing on the platform during that period, or a change in reporting practice, before being described as a trend in kitten welfare outcomes.
Chart 2: Pets listed by age cohort and listing organisation type, quarterly
This chart breaks down listing volumes for each of the four cohorts by the type of organisation that published the listing: rescue group, shelter, council pound, or other.
Key patterns
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Council pound listings are negligible across all four cohorts throughout the period. This is a clear point of difference from Victoria and New South Wales, where council pound made up a small but consistent share of listings. In Queensland, listings are made up almost entirely of rescue group and shelter organisation types.
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For cats (6 months and over), shelter organisations account for a notably larger share of listings than rescue groups in most quarters, which differs from the kitten, puppy and dog breakdowns, where rescue groups generally make up the larger share.
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For kittens, puppies and dogs, rescue groups account for the largest single share of listings in most quarters, with shelters making up most of the remainder.
Chart 3: Pets adopted by age cohort and listing organisation type, quarterly
This chart shows the same organisation-type breakdown as Chart 2, applied to adoption volumes rather than listing volumes.
Key patterns
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The relative proportions of rescue group and shelter adoptions broadly mirror the proportions seen in listings (Chart 2) for each cohort, including the larger shelter share seen specifically for cats.
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As in Chart 2, council pound and other organisation types contribute a negligible share of adoptions across all cohorts.
Chart 4: How cats came into care, quarterly
This chart shows quarterly cat listing volumes by recorded intake source (community cat, owner surrender, pound transfer, or shelter transfer), both as counts and as a percentage share.
Key patterns
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The "not recorded" category makes up a substantial share of cat listings throughout the entire period. In the earliest quarters (2022), it accounts for roughly 60 percent of listings. This share has narrowed over time but remains significant, at around 20 to 25 percent, by the most recent quarters in 2026.
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Among recorded sources, owner surrender is generally the largest single category from around 2024 onward, with community cat and pound transfer also contributing meaningfully throughout.
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Shelter transfer is a minor recorded source for most of the period but increases noticeably in the final quarter shown (Q2 2026).
Caveat
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Recording of intake source is not mandatory on the platform. In Queensland, the proportion of listings with no recorded source is high throughout the entire period covered by this dataset, not just in earlier quarters as seen in some other states. This means source proportions shown here, at every point in the time series, are based on a minority-to-moderate share of total cat listings, and should be treated as indicative rather than a complete picture of how cats came into care.
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Chart 5 shows that this data-completeness gap is concentrated very heavily in the shelter or council organisation group rather than spread evenly across all organisations. This should be taken into account before drawing conclusions from Chart 4 about intake patterns for any specific organisation type.
Chart 5: Cat sources, volunteer-run rescue vs shelter or council, quarterly
This chart splits the Chart 4 breakdown by organisation group: volunteer-run rescue (rescue groups excluding Home2Home) versus shelter or council (shelters and council pounds combined).
Key patterns
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For volunteer-run rescues, intake source is recorded for the large majority of listings throughout the period, generally 90 percent or more, with owner surrender and pound transfer the largest recorded sources and community cat also contributing a consistent share.
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For shelters and councils, the pattern is markedly different. From 2022 through the end of 2023, almost none of this group's cat listings have a recorded intake source, with the share recorded close to zero across every quarter in that window.
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From early 2024, a recorded share begins to appear for shelters and councils and grows gradually, reaching roughly 40 to 50 percent recorded by 2025 and 2026, still leaving around half of listings in this group without a recorded source even in the most recent quarters.
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Within the shelter or council group's recorded listings, owner surrender is the most consistently present category from 2024 onward, with a marked increase in the shelter transfer category in the final quarter shown (Q2 2026).
Caveat
As shown in Chart 2, council pound listings make up a very small share of total listings in Queensland relative to shelters. The "shelter or council" group in this chart is therefore driven almost entirely by shelter-type organisations rather than council pounds specifically.