[CAT] On the cat island of Aoshima, Japan

Earlier this month, The Atlantic featured a Reuters photo essay by Thomas Peter depicting the cats of the Japanese island of Aoshima. As one source describes it, Aoshima–located off of the coast of the major Japanese island of Shikoku–is an island with an aging human population and a rapidly growing cat population. This latter gives it some economic heft.

A remote island in southern Japan is home to 22 people and more than 120 cats.

Aoshima is a dwindling fishing community of elderly people who live mainly off retirement benefits. The cats were originally brought over to the island to deal with mice plaguing fishing boats. But they’ve since multiplied as there are no natural predators.

Tourists have been flocking to the island off Ehime prefecture on a ferry that runs twice twice a day. Cat lover Makiko Yamasaki, 27, said: “I came here looking to relax. And as for how is it? Well there is a ton of cats here, then there was this sort of cat witch, who came out to feed the cats, which was quite fun. So I’d want to come again.”

Many more photos are available at the links.

The phenomenon of the “cat island” or “cat village” seems to common in East Asia. Outside Japan, where the Pacific-coast cat island of Tashirohima received attention after being spared by the 2011 tsunami, I blogged back in 2011 about the Taiwanese village of Houtong, also taken over by cats after its human population had substantially departed. What these communities all seem to share in common is a recent sharp decline in human populations, coupled with a growth of cat populations. It’s reasonable to imagine that, in decaying human settlements, cats might do reasonably well, taking shelter in human constructions and feeding off of prey.

These pictures are cute. The huge problem with the phenomenon is that without humans actively taking care of their cats–one woman is shown in the photo essay as actively providing the cats with food, for instance–these dense cat populations could easily end badly. What would happen to them without food? What are their lives like, living largely in the wild exposed to the dangers of outdoor life?

Still. Cute photos, these. Go, see.