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There is no airfield on the island so visitors arrive via a ferry out of Ishinomaki – the trip takes roughly 40 minutes.

Don’t expect a large welcoming committee when you get there, however… at least, not of the human persuasion.  There are only 73 people living on Tashirojima, almost all of them over the age of 65.  The island’s population has dropped by 90% over the past 50 years.  The cats though, they’re doing just fine thank you.


images via: Tashiro-Hamaya and Tofugu

the ferry and the welcome committee


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Times change, and by the late 19th century improvements in fishing nets allowed Tashirojima’s residents to pursue more lucrative activities offshore.  Though the silk industry declined, the island’s cat population did not – people had gotten used to having cats around and the latter continued their mousing activities in and around the island’s docks, boathouses and storage sheds.


images via: Tashiro-Hamaya, Med-India and Tra News


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An apocryphal story concerns the cats of Tashirojima:

“One day, when the fishermen were collecting rocks to use with the fixed-nets, a stray rock fell and killed one of the cats. The fishermen, feeling sorry for the loss of the cat, buried it and enshrined it at this location on the island.”

A small building was constructed on the site and people would leave small cat-related talismans there in order to encourage the benevolence of both the living cats and the spirits of their ancestors.




images via: Amusing Planet and Tofugu

“The cats here have always been something like a lucky charm for us who bring good catch,” said local fisherman Tsuneo Endo.  â€œWe enshrine them because they are important to us.”


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This is the country that gave the world Hello Kitty after all… you’d better believe there are people ready, willing and able to make the long and complicated trip to Tashirojima just to spend a night in a building shaped like a cat.  Just don’t bring Fido along, for obvious reasons.


image via: Tofugu


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“You may think this place is so peaceful,” says Yutaka Hama, “but if there’s a fire, there is nobody who can help put it out.”  The 49-year-old Hama heads a group seeking to promote travel and tourism to Tashirojima – and maybe more.

“I want young people to come,” explains Hama, “there are folks here who would teach them fishing.”  Hama, who moved to Tashirojima a few years ago and now operates an inn on the island, may hold out prospects of employment as a lure to visitors but it’s the island’s cats who seem to be a far bigger draw.


images via: Eigapedia and Rahen Z

Tashirojima’s cats made a sudden leap to pop-culture prominence several years ago when a TV documentary on the cats of Tashirojima focused on one particular cat: Jack the Lop Ear, a black & white tom with a drooping left ear.  There’s also Nyanko The Movie and its sequels, which feature the cats of Tashirojima.  To paraphrase Field Of Dreams, “If you film it, they will come.”


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cat island location, tashirojima, japan.  (the yellow arrow is the ferry route from the port city of ishinomaki.)


images via: NGiley

the tsunami epicenter:


images via: The Daily Tail and Love Meow

The magnitude-9 earthquake which struck northeastern Japan on March 11th, 2011, shifted the entire Oshika Peninsula and its associated islands 5.3m (17 ft) towards the epicenter and lowered it by 1.2m (3.9 ft).  The tsunami which followed was as high as 10m – the image above shows the waves about to inundate Ajishima (網地島).  Tashirojima is a rugged island, however, whose highest peak rises to 96.2 meters (315 feet) above sea level.  The two main villages on the island are Oodomari and Nitoda (home to most of the cats), with the latter situated on high ground.

The NASA satellite image above left, taken shortly after the tsunami hit, shows Tashirojima above water and reports from the Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support (JEARS) indicate all of the islands residents (cats AND humans) survived the disaster.


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Massive earthquakes and nightmarish tsunamis are no strangers to Japan’s northeastern coast – they have happened before and will happen again, if history is any guide. The cats of Tashirojima are survivors, however, and it’s good to know that once again they have landed on their feet.


image via: Discovery

an islander in the island of cats 



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hinaot unta.  i'd be glad to have one cat-inspired cat house.  you would of course be most welcome to step in for some temporary lodging by then; vaccinations required, apil na nga buotan ka, di tabian, di k@watan, maayo moluto, naay police and barangay clearance, ug nagtangag ug recommendation from fr chic... kamong duha ni bugsay, opkors naman.  

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Onsikantot, nagduhaduha mi kay basin imbis adto mi nimo papuy-on sa cathouse, adto diay sa outhouse...

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aw, basta di lang ninyo panamastamasan akong mga iring (kuhaon unya ninyo nga starlets ug crush video, putlan gyod ta moh!), the outhouse is out of the question.  but if you didn't behave, i'll flush you down the outhouse, okay?

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Tashirojima cats waiting to be fed...





Hmm, ang nanay tingali ning Islander... 




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nagtakuban ba kaha ni, or nagsulti's tinuod?... ;D

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sama ra nga nipadayag ka'g pag yango sa nauwahi...

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“Cat Island” Survives Japan’s Tsunami

13 April 2011

written by PepiSmartDog in the Special World News section of The Anipal Times

A sense of dread filled all pals when we read the news that Japan’s “Cat Island” had been completely submerged during the tsunami.  It seemed unbelievable that anyone could survive a 20-foot wall of water, moving at jet-engine speed, let alone kittens.  However, “Cat Island has survived with only minimal loss of life,” Yutaka Hama of the Hama House Inn on the island, told Live Science.

Before the tsunami, “Cat Island” or Tashirojima, as the island is officially called, was covered in cats.  A reader of The Conscious Cat blog checked with a Japanese website devoted to Tashirojima and reported, ”A girl whose friend returned from the island yesterday confirmed that while a few cats died (near the gatehouse) the others are okay.  There are about 50 people left on the island, and they are said to have received food (both for the humans and the cats.)  It seems that when power and water will be restored, things will be fairly okay, all things considered.”

Live Science also reported that it’s difficult to keep the island supplied with food.  Although relief teams have delivered human supplies by helicopter, animal relief workers aren’t sure how much food the cats are receiving.  “The people on the island are very protective of the cats, so taking them off the island isn’t a choice,” Isabella Gallaon-Aoki of Animal Friends Niigata, a member of the Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support coalition, told Live Science.  “We will offer support to give them supplies and help with the injured animals, but a mass evacuation isn’t in the cards.”  JEARS (Japanese Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support) plans to take cat food and other cat supplies to the island by boat. 



from

dis paper not for peeing on!


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Cat Island’s best bet for survival was tourism.  Before the tsunami, the modern people of the island hoped that tourists would keep arriving and photograph their cats, feed their cats, pet their cats, etc.  Two ferries a day crossed back and forth to the island from Sendai.  Now that Sendai has been obliterated, Cat Island is even more isolated and further removed from tourists and their dollars.  Damage done to Cat Island is said to be devastating.  Tourists and volunteers are urgently required from the mainland just to get this tiny island in the position to restart it’s economy.




from

dis paper not for peeing on!

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Dia ra ang sulod sa cathouse ni Ms. Isle, Bay Bugs. Hmm, asa kaha diay tawon ta pwede matulog ani...




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mahimo kang baki!  hehehe.  bitaw, adto sa thread ni imong papardz hubag nga "let's hit the beach"... di gyod ka magmahay nako.

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Hmm, unsa kahay mahunahunaan sa tag-iya, maayo lang kon naay kabaiiran...

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first solution:  spay and neuter the cats.  it's a onetime expense, without regrets.  believe it or not, a female cat that's not spayed is bound to have 20,000 descendants in it's healthy lifetime.   

second solution:  ayaw padungga ang mga cats kun kamoy mag-kuan... tingali baya ug nanundog lang sila ninyo, hahaha! 

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Hmm, paakon diay ang tangkugo?

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