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An army of feral cats rules a remote island in southern Japan, curling up in abandoned houses or strutting about in a fishing village that is overrun with felines outnumbering humans six to one.
[fwdevp preset_id=”8″ video_path=”PWx2tYLVnMY”]The cats were originally introduced to Aoshima Island to deal with mice and other pests on fishermen’s boats, but the cats stayed on and multiplied.
There are now more than 120 cats living on the mile-long island and only a handful of humans, mostly elderly people, who did not leave the island seeking work in the cities after World War Two like the other residents.
The island, a 30 minute boat trip from the coast of Ehime prefecture, was home to 900 people before 1945 but has now become known as ‘Cat Island’.
It is now becoming a popular tourist destination for cat lovers who are taking day-trips from the mainland, following on from the growing popularity of cat cafes in Tokyo.
The mass of cats swarming the island tend to survive on rice balls, energy bars or potatoes fed to them from tourists.
Daytripper Makiko Yamasaki, 27, said: “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.”
Some of the residents are fed-up of the army of cats and are trying to keep the population in check by neutering the felines.
The island’s humans are also becoming tired of the growing number of tourists and have said they want to be left in peace.
Agencies/Canadajournal
120 cats? I’ve shot and buried more than that in 1 week where I live. I quit counting after about 200-300 of them. There were hundreds and hundreds on my lands destroying every last bit of native wildlife, gutted-alive and skinned-alive by cats for their writhing and screeching play-toys. I’ve not seen even one cat in over five years now, the eradication of them that complete and effective. All the cat-lickers where I live finally grew-up into responsible adults. They don’t DARE let any of their invasive-species vermin outside anymore.
I used my legal rights to destroy any (non-game, non-endangered) nuisance animal on my own lands. (AS IS THE LEGAL RIGHT OF EVERY LAND-OWNER.) Collared or not — for you MUST destroy ALL stray collared cats as well, they are the very source of every last feral cat. If you don’t destroy them too then you have done NOTHING to solve the feral cat problem. Guaranteed. All the cat-lickers by me told me for over a decade that all their “pet” cats were sterilized. But upon inspection during shooting and burying hundreds of them, NOT ONE of their cats was sterilized. Cat-owners are manipulative and deceptive liars — one and all.
Leaving ANY of their invasive species cats outside in my area means certain death for their cat, its further existence can be counted in hours. You’d think everyone else could learn from this simple lesson. The quickest way to solve an unwanted animal and irresponsible pet-owner problem is to let everyone know that you will quickly and humanely destroy every last one of their unwanted, uncared-for, or unsupervised animals for them. They either grow up fast or, far more plausible, dump their animals elsewhere to become someone else’s problem.
You just can’t be an enabler of criminally irresponsible spineless and heartless idiots — or they remain that way. (At least where you live, anyway.)
I don’t see anyone dumping cats where I live anymore. They don’t even adopt more than can be kept under lock & key 24/7/52. When driving through the area I don’t see even one cat on anyone’s doorsteps anymore. I always keep an eye-out to see if there are more free-roaming cats that will have to be shot. And if I’ll have to leave fish-oil trails on all the roadsides again, leading right to my IR surveillance system and laser-sighted rifle. (You can read the most effective methods I invented to rid my lands of hundreds of these vermin in only two seasons at this site: americanhunter D0T org SLASH blogs/arkansas-will-trap-feral-cats The eradication of these vermin was so complete and effective that cats are non-existent from my area for FIVE years now. Not seen nor heard a single one. So much for that cat-lickers’ oft-spewed and manipulative “vacuum effect” deception and lie too, eh?)
I bought 5,000 rounds of .22s on a close-out sale for $15, with plenty left-over in case someone in the area wants to start up their vermin cat-hobby ever again. 3 cats per penny! Hundreds and hundreds of cats solved for less than the price of a couple-cups of coffee. Each cat sterilized against ALL of their 3dozen+ deadly diseases (for which some don’t even have vaccines for them and are listed as bio-terrorism agents), each cat sterilized so they can no-longer reproduce, and each cat also given a permanent “loving furever home” (2-3 ft. under). A TOTAL solution affordable to anyone, any size of community! With no further costs incurred by ANYONE EVER AGAIN.
So, I guess you could say that cats USED TO outnumber humans 1 to many hundreds, where I live. Now that’s news. LOL