Mittens the Wellington cat goes global in award-winning song

Wellington's famous cat Mittens has gone global after being immortalised in an award-winning song.

The song, written and performed by Chris Sanders, is named after the capital's cat and reached the finals in the International Songwriting Competition - one of more than 26,000 songs submitted.

"We think it was a pretty incredible effort making the top 14 songs in a competition with over 26,000 entries and feel very proud of this achievement!" wrote Sanders on Facebook.

"And let's face it - we all know Mittens is number 1!"

The song was released in December 2020 and has since reached number 1 of all genres on NZ iTunes, 12 in the NZ music singles chart and number 10 in the USA iTunes.

All proceeds from the song will be donated to The Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand. 

Mittens, a Turkish Angora, is an icon of Wellington. The friendly feline is known to wander the CBD and surrounding suburbs, jumping into cars and sauntering into office buildings.

It's not the first time the cat has made global headlines.

His Facebook fan page, the Wondrous Adventures of Mittens, has more than 69,000 members worldwide and when he was given a key to the city it made global headlines.