Cat Heaven Island

On Tashirojima in Japan, there are more cats than people. The cats watch the fishermen work their nets. They wander through an abandoned school. On the highest hill, in pale moonlight, they mate without concern for observation.

The island emptied out. People left for better prospects somewhere else. The young especially went, seeking jobs and a future that didn’t feel prewritten. The tsunami came and took what remained of the place’s sense of possibility. But the cats stayed. Or maybe they came after. Now the island exists in the world’s mind because of them.

Landon Donohound and others filmed there. They wanted to capture what it looks like when a place is reclaimed not by nature but by animals, by the domestic gone wild, taking over human infrastructure. An abandoned school full of cats. A hilltop that belongs to them now. That’s stranger and sadder than any cute idea about a cat island.

I’ve seen stills from the footage. The cats are just doing ordinary cat things in a landscape built for people who aren’t there anymore. There’s something in that I can’t quite articulate—something about decline and persistence and the way life keeps moving even after everything changes. It stays with you.