Japan's purrfect island paradise
It's cool for cats on the isle of Aoshima
About 13 kilometres off Japan’s southern island of Shikoku in the Sea of Iyo, there’s an islet whose feline population exceeds that of human inhabitants by 10 times.
Aoshima, spanning 1.5 kilometres east to west and just 500 metres north to south in Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, is also known as the Island of Cats. More than 100 of the furry, four-legged creatures live here, while there are only 15 people.
In late September, Aoshima became a focus of attention on the Internet, and quickly drew visitors from all over Japan. The island, which doesn’t have accommodation, restaurants or even vending machines, has become a paradise not only for cats, but also for cat lovers.
The 15 non-feline residents range in age from 50somethings to veterans in their 80s. Four still work as fishermen, while most of the others are pensioners. During World War II, the island’s population was swelled by an influx of evacuees and peaked at 655 in 1960. But the majority have since left to find work on the mainland.
Currently, a ferry – the only means of transportation – connects Aoshima and Shikoku twice a day.
According to the islanders, about a decade ago, the number of human residents fell below 50, sparking a mini population explosion among abandoned cats. The semi-feral felines began to breed unchecked, moving into the many houses left vacant and turning them into cosy hideouts. The cats have no natural predators on the island and are even immune to traffic accidents – there are no cars on the Aoshima.
“They bother me because they sometimes sneak into my house. But there’s nothing we can do about the increasing number of cats,” says fisherman Hidenori Kamimoto, 63, taking a benevolent attitude.
A sunny day usually brings dozens of felines out into the open to lounge on the roads and walls. They are used to people and readily approach them for food. Pictures of such scenes posted on the Internet last year caught the attention of Netizens and sparked a small tourism boom on the island.
In October, I counted eight visitors disembarking from a ferry. They spent their day on Aoshima photographing and feeding the furry locals.
Kafumi Munehira, 50, from Mihara, Hiroshima Prefecture, had spent the night in the city of Ozu to catch a ferry at Iyo-Nagahama Port the following morning to Aoshima.
“I’m overwhelmed by how many cats there are! There are nothing but cats here, and I don’t mind that at all,” she said.
Sayumi Nagamori, 23, from Sanuki, Kagawa Prefecture, said, “I can observe their natural life here.”
Ferry captain Nobuyuki Ninomiya is surprised by the new trend: “I seldom carried tourists before, but now I carry them every week, even though the only thing we have to offer is cats.”
Yuji Tsuzuki, 41, of the local tourist division, said he’d like to organise tourism with cats as a theme, but he hopes visitors respect the island by not overfeeding the cats or leaving garbage.
Cat islands abound
“Cat islands” exist in and outside Japan, helping to boost regional tourism. Tashirojima island in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, is home to 86 people and more than 100 cats. Its fishermen regard cats as sacred, and there’s even a feline shrine. But the “king” of cat islands has to be Malta in the Mediterranean. It boasts some 800,000 feline fur balls – double the number of human residents.
