Felines outnumber humans on Japan’s ‘Cat Island’

WATCH ABOVE: Aoshima Island in Japan has been overrun by feral cats. Allison Vuchnich has more on “Cat Island.”

TORONTO –  Feline enthusiasts are flocking to a remote island in southern Japan to visit what locals call “cat island” where humans are outnumbered six to one.

Aoshima, a mile-long island off the coast of Ehime, is home to more than 120 feral cats, which significantly outnumber the roughly 22 senior citizens who didn’t migrate to the mainland after the Second World War.

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The island has become a tourist destination with one ferry running twice a day and carrying 34 daily visitors, according to a Reuters report.

“I seldom carried tourists before,” ferry captain Nobuyuki Ninomiya told the Japan Daily Press. “Now I carry tourists every week, even though the only thing we have to offer is cats.”

According to local media reports the cats were first brought to the island by fishermen to deal with the large mouse population that would swarm their boats.

“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,” 27-year-old visitor Makiko Yamasaki told Reuters. “So I’d want to come again.”

Aoshima is one of roughly a dozen other Japanese islands that see this phenomenon of cats eclipsing  human populations. Tashirojima has a population of 86 people and roughly 100 cats and is referred to as “Cat Heaven Island.”