Feral cat roundup to protect Ogasawara birds and bats

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Stray cats on the Ogasawara Islands are being captured and shipped to Honshu to become pets instead of remaining free to prey on the islands' protected native species as the islands are under consideration to become a World Natural Heritage Site.

The nonprofit Institute of Boninology and the Tokyo Veterinary Medical Association started capturing feral cats in 2005 to reduce further harm to the islands' ecosystem, while islanders have helped capture cats since July.

The stray cats used to be pets but became feral, living far from villages and eating wild birds.

On the remote islands, which are administratively part of Tokyo, cat attacks on the Bonin flying fox, a bat that lives only on Chichijima island, and damage to seabird breeding sites on Hahajima island have become serious problems since the mid-1990s.

Captured cats are shipped to Honshu, where association members tame them for a couple of months to become suitable as pets.

More than 100 tamed cats have been given away.

According to the institute, a total of at least 150 feral cats are living on Chichijima and Hahajima islands.

It is reported that they are threatening the habitat of the akagashira-karasubato, or Japanese wood pigeon, an endangered species.

When the islands came up for World Heritage Site status, residents on the islands started to help catch the cats.

"Maybe because they missed people, the captured cats show affection once they're tamed," said Yasushi Komatsu, the association's vice chairman. "The Ogasawara Islands now are a World Heritage candidate site, and we want to explain to islanders the importance of keeping pets responsibly."

The International Union for Conservation of Nature, which compiles evaluation documents regarding World Natural Heritage Site registration, finished a field study on the islands on Tuesday.

Asked about the cat-catching activity, one of the experts who took part in the study said: "We're shocked, in a good way. It's a wonderful and humane way to protect species.

"The activity is also a good example of environmental education involving an NPO and local people."

The expert said measures should be reinforced to prevent the introduction of alien species to the islands.

UNESCO's World Heritage Committee will decide whether to register the islands next July.