Populations of unowned, and often unsocialized, cats are widespread in many countries, where they are often viewed as pests. Still, some people and groups care about their welfare. Assessments of the welfare of cats in these populations are best conducted post mortem, because, with their fear of humans and aggressive behavior when handled, the animals are difficult to examine clinically. Systematic post mortem assessment of welfare has been attempted with poultry (Sherwin et al., 2010) but not cats. We present the development of a protocol to assess the welfare of cats by means of necropsy.