![\"iriomote](\"https:\/\/hakaimagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/black-and-white-iriomote-cat.jpg\")
<\/a>The house-cat-sized Iriomote wildcat is one of approximately 40 known species of wildcats. Photo by Asahi Shimbum\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n
The other driver stopped and rolled down his window to meet Tsukayama\u2019s eyes. Tsukayama knew the man\u2014on Iriomote, everyone knows everyone. He looked rattled, his face pale with worry. \u201cWas the thing that hit my car an Iriomote cat?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Tsukayama replied, \u201cbut the cat seemed to be okay.\u201d The man slumped at the steering wheel and sighed with relief.<\/p>\n
Killing a wildcat would weigh heavily on most people here. The animal is even more famous than the island\u2019s spectacular beauty. Mention Iriomote to practically any Japanese person and they will light up: yamaneko\u2014<\/em>the mountain cat\u2014lives there! \u201cSimply put,\u201d says Tsukayama, \u201cthe existence of the cat is our pride.\u201d<\/p>\n The feline is a subspecies of leopard cat and looks like a large, gray tabby but with rounder ears and spots rather than stripes. And though it could easily be mistaken for a house cat, it exists nowhere in the world beyond this tiny island. It\u2019s also critically endangered. The total population hovers between 100 and 150, in part because the island\u2019s size naturally constrains it. This leaves it exceptionally vulnerable to extinction.<\/p>\n As a young man, Tsukayama never saw dead cats on the road. Now, the death toll is stacking up. About a month prior to Tsukayama\u2019s near miss, a resident found a dead female cat crumpled on the side of the road. Rangers from Japan\u2019s Ministry of the Environment later discovered two starving kittens mewling nearby. (Both have since been rehabilitated and released.) Their mother was the third confirmed fatality last year.<\/p>\n Illustration by Mark Garrison<\/p><\/div>\n Tsukayama and other islanders fear that number will climb. In 2017, the Japanese government applied to turn part of Iriomote into a World Heritage Site, a UNESCO designation reserved for places of exceptional cultural, historical, or natural value. While that listing would bring prestige, it would also bring more tourists. The island now sees hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, and many locals say current levels of traffic and environmental damage are already putting unacceptable strain on both human and feline residents. \u201cIt\u2019s a pleasure for us that so many people focus on this treasure of ours and wish to visit our island,\u201d says Tsukayama. \u201cBut if too many people flood in without any controls in place, it\u2019s going to be a crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n The world\u2019s 40 species<\/a> of wildcats and their subspecies are diverse and widespread, ranging from Scotland and South Africa to Afghanistan and Vietnam. Iriomote is the world\u2019s smallest island to host them. Researchers are not sure how many cats the island could support, but they believe it would be fewer than 1,000 given the felines\u2019 territory size and territorial behavior, says Masako Izawa, an ecologist at the University of the Ryukyus in Okinawa. The current population is likely under capacity, she says, because of car strikes and habitat encroachment by tourists.<\/p>\n Iriomote wildcats have made the most of their tiny home by being resourceful, Izawa says. Having spent 90,000 years on an island without the small mammals (save fruit bats) that other wildcats tend to rely on, they are one of the least picky eaters of all felines. They dine on birds, lizards, frogs, crabs, shrimp, snakes, and insects. Unlike most other cats, they do not shy away from water; they\u2019re happy to plunge into a stream or river in pursuit of prey.<\/p>\n For a long time, however, Iriomote\u2019s human residents saw the cat as just another part of the forest. \u201cWe didn\u2019t recognize that it\u2019s a special, rare wildcat\u2014it was just a cat that lives close to our village,\u201d Tsukayama says.<\/p>\n Hiko Tsukayama, a farmer, has lived on Iriomote all his life. He and his neighbors have become unlikely champions for Iriomote wildcats, which they once viewed as being prioritized over humans. Tsukayama now assists with conservation efforts and calls the cats the pride of his small island. Photo by Rachel Nuwer<\/p><\/div>\n That changed in 1965, when the late Yukio Togawa, a journalist turned ecologist and novelist, visited neighboring Ishigaki island and heard rumors about a mysterious wildcat that lived on Iriomote. Togawa doubted that an island so small could support a major predator, but he resolved to find out.<\/p>\n Stepping off the ferry at Iriomote was like traveling back in time for the Tokyo native. Electricity had only just arrived, and most residents still earned their living directly from the land, using outdated, traditional equipment. Many were poor compared to those living on Japan\u2019s larger islands.<\/p>\n To Togawa\u2019s delight, locals quickly confirmed that a wildcat lived among them. Sometimes they even caught it in snares meant for wild boar\u2014and ate it all the same.<\/p>\n Togawa managed to obtain a skull and two furs from villagers, which he brought back to Tokyo. On a second trip, he found a complete specimen: the dug-up remains of an ailing cat that some junior high school students had trapped on a beach and buried after it died. Scientists excitedly confirmed that Togawa had found a unique type of wildcat.<\/p>\n Togawa wanted to learn more about the fascinating animals, so two years later, he brought back two live Iriomote cats that villagers had trapped for him. His daughter Kumi, a teenager at the time, remembers her annoyance when her father converted her bedroom into a temporary cat pen. \u201cThe smell was so bad\u2014like a zoo!\u201d she says. Unlike house cats, she says, the terrified wildcats did not meow, but they did hiss\u2014a lot\u2014and they often splashed around in their large water bowl as though it were a kiddie pool.<\/p>\n For two years, the house was frequently visited by gaggles of reporters, until, to Kumi\u2019s relief, her father sent the cats to live at Japan\u2019s National Museum of Nature and Science. Their taxidermic bodies are still on display there today.<\/p>\n This Iriomote wildcat on display in the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo is one of two collected live by the late Yukio Togawa. His work on behalf of the rare cat raised its profile and led to recognition that it was a species distinct to Iriomote. Photo by Daderot\/Wikimedia<\/p><\/div>\n Strangely, though, her father avoided the subject of wildcats after they departed. Only decades later did Kumi piece together that he might have felt guilty about his discovery. In his papers, she found a 1978 letter from an Iriomote villager complaining that the government prioritized cats over people. \u201cConservation of nature sounds very beautiful, but we should not be forced to live a very primeval life,\u201d the person wrote.<\/p>\n Islanders, Kumi learned, had reason to feel wronged. After a German scientist published a report in the late 1970s stating that Iriomote was too small to support both wildcats and people, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, wrote to Japan\u2019s Crown Prince Akihito to urge him to relocate the human population. The government also proposed a national park that would remove a third of the island\u2019s land from development. Then, it canceled a road project because it cut through key cat territory.<\/p>\n \u201cMany local people were upset, and we created a campaign with the slogan, \u2018Iriomote cats or human beings?\u2019\u201d Tsukayama says. \u201cWe took action.\u201d<\/p>\n He and his neighbors convinced representatives from the Ministry of the Environment to come see firsthand that residents coexisted well with the cats. Researchers soon confirmed this claim: rather than avoid human habitation, wildcats readily hunted in rice paddies and pineapple farms. The government dropped discussions about moving people off Iriomote and reached a compromise on the scale of the national park. Over time, local people began to view the wildcats with pride rather than resentment. They fundraised to erect a monument on the beach to the cat trapped so long ago by junior high school students since it was this cat\u2019s skeleton that helped confirm Iriomote\u2019s distinct wildcat species. And students today have a special annual lesson about wildcats and conservation on Iriomote. Locals even help scientists with their studies.<\/p>\n Years after the two unwelcome felines took up residence in her bedroom, Kumi also came around to the cats. Elegant and poised, she now chairs the Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund (JTEF), a nonprofit conservation organization in Tokyo, and a few years after her father died in 2004, she and Masayuki Sakamoto, JTEF\u2019s executive director, decided to make the Iriomote wildcat a priority.<\/p>\n Kumi Togawa\u2019s father, Yukio, helped champion the Iriomote wildcat in the 1960s and \u201970s. Today, Kumi continues his conservation work through the Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund. Photo by Makoto Hori\/Newscom\/Alamy Stock Photo<\/p><\/div>\n Tsukayama now works closely with JTEF to win over other residents and assist with research\u2014a relationship he would have found unimaginable just a few years ago. \u201cTo cooperate with conservation was a big change for us,\u201d he says. \u201cBut respectful researchers finally understood that the main player for conservation of the Iriomote cat is the local people.\u201d<\/p>\n The detente was just in time. Outside interest in the island swelled from a trickle to a flood, and Tsukayama and his neighbors soon became a lifeline for the cats, trying to ensure they were not swept away.<\/p>\n A kayaker gliding smoothly through the green-brown water of one of the island\u2019s canals might feel like the last person on Earth. Mangroves overhang muddy banks that scuttle with crabs and mudskippers. The air is thick and silent. Iriomote can seem untouched, overlooked, secret. That feeling, though, likely won\u2019t last.<\/p>\n On a muggy summer afternoon, squeals of laughter, shouts of conversation, and paddle splashes echo down the channel leading to the trailhead for Pinaisara Falls, one of the island\u2019s most popular sightseeing destinations. The beach below is crowded with kayaks in clashing candy colors, stark against the subdued green of the forest.<\/p>\n Along the trail, tree roots stick out like veins on a bodybuilder\u2019s arms, and deep, shoe-shaped divots are worn into the rocks by so many feet. The short path ends at a clearing where the falls\u2014a thin, misty ribbon of white\u2014empty into a chest-deep pool. Half a dozen tourists take turns jumping from a rock into the water. Others sit on the shore, eating oranges and reapplying bug spray. Sunscreen shimmers on the water\u2019s surface. Lacking a restroom, visitors scramble uphill of the river to relieve themselves in the bushes.<\/p>\n The Iriomote wildcat is critically endangered, with only about 100 to 150 remaining on its tiny island home. Photo by Tadaaki Imaizumi\/Minden Pictures<\/p><\/div>\n Around 20,000 visitors annually kayak and trek to Pinaisara Falls, within critical Iriomote cat habitat. But they\u2019re only a tiny fraction of the total number of tourists swarming the island. Last year, 315,000 people visited. While this is an economic boon, strain on the environment has begun to show. And habitat degradation isn\u2019t the only serious concern for the cats, Sakamoto says. Huge numbers of tourists may also prevent them from using key parts of their range.<\/p>\n Tourists have more direct impacts as well. Most want to see a cat, but the chances are low: Tsukayama has spent his entire life on the island and estimates that he\u2019s seen them 30 times. Because of the cats\u2019 elusiveness, some unscrupulous tour guides put out bait and then bring tourists out at night to see if any cats appear. In 2016, a video emerged of a flashlight-wielding guide sending a mother wildcat scurrying into the bushes, leaving one of her two crying kittens behind. While JTEF reported the incident to the local Ministry of the Environment office, there was little officials there could do. They have the legal authority only to stop people from capturing protected wildlife. \u201cIn the case of feeding or shining a light at cats, all we can do is just request the person to stop,\u201d says Shota Sugimoto, a ministry ranger based on Iriomote. \u201cIt\u2019s a problem and it should be changed.\u201d<\/p>\n Television programs have since featured the guide who shot the video, Sakamoto adds, and one of the island\u2019s largest hotels continues to promote his tour, titled \u201cLet\u2019s meet Iriomote cats!\u201d<\/p>\n The main site used by such guides, a rice paddy by the side of the road, also happens to be a hotspot for wildcat hit-and-runs. Prior to 2000, no more than three dead cats turned up on the island per year, but now islanders discover as many as seven. This continues despite a number of protection strategies, including more than 100 wildlife underpasses installed along the 54-kilometer highway and fencing meant to direct animals to the tunnels. Signs that warn of the felines\u2019 presence and remind drivers of the 40-kilometer-per-hour speed limit line the highway, and speed bumps regularly interrupt the blacktop. Local officials even post billboards depicting a leaping cat silhouette and body count for the year at the sites of the most recent fatalities.<\/p>\n Yusuke Takayama (left) and Masayuki Sakamoto from the Japan Tiger and Elephant Fund examine a road sign on Iriomote Island, Japan, indicating how many wildcats have been killed to date in 2018 and placed at the site of the last fatal accident. Photo by Rachel Nuwer<\/p><\/div>\n With their home base of Tokyo a world away, Togawa and Sakamoto hired Yusuke Takayama, an avid outdoorsman based on the island, to lead conservation efforts there. Takayama, who grew up near Tokyo, moved to Iriomote after growing exhausted with city life and his job in the chemical industry. Lanky, suntanned, and always in flip-flops, his laid-back vibe helped him quickly win over locals, while his analytical skills from his past career proved an asset for conservation.<\/p>\n Initially, most islanders blamed tourists for wildcat deaths. So in 2013, Takayama spent many nights clocking passing cars and noting if there was a rental code on their license plates to distinguish tourists from locals. A few topped out at 80 kilometers per hour; he even saw a drag race. In the end, data from around 1,000 vehicles showed that it was predominately residents, not tourists, who were going too fast, averaging 46 kilometers per hour.<\/p>\n To build on these findings, in 2016, JTEF launched the Yamaneko Patrol. On a humid evening this past July, I join them. Sakamoto and Takayama don bright-orange vests, stick a flashing yellow light to the top of their minivan, and turn onto the island\u2019s lone highway. Takayama rolls down the windows, preferring the chorus of frogs and insects to the radio.<\/p>\n Several nights per week, they or another pair of volunteers from a pool of 20\u2014Tsukayama among them\u2014slowly drive back and forth along the island\u2019s deadliest 20-kilometer stretch of road. As on the vast majority of nights, no cats leap out of the bushes, but there is still plenty to keep the pair busy. They pause to clock speeding cars. They stop every minute or so to shoo leaping frogs from the road to the safety of the bushes, chase Yorkie-sized coconut crabs away from the median, and encourage thin, lethargic snakes to slither on their way.<\/p>\n<\/a>
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