Kampai!!

Were the boar introduced? I know that in the places in the US where they’ve been brought in, “nuisance” would adequately describe the issue.

DWA- Hey there! I’ve just been very busy, but I’ve been lurking here. I plan to be popping up from time to time now though. I agree that clouded leopard is the best candidate, if indeed something is there at all. These cats are extremely good climbers and might appear to do something akin to the swinging from tree to tree described in the report. Unless it is a mystery primate? Oh, that would be a whole new article!;)

PoeticsOfBigfoot- Thank you. As far as the ecology of the island being able to sustain a population of predatory cats, that is of course a very valid point. I would keep in mind that this island is crawling with wild boar. Boars are all over the place here, and can actually be a nuisance to the people living there. This would be a viable large prey source. Also, leopards can and will survive off of pretty much anything they can get their claws on. Rodents, turtles, lizards, you name it they’ll eat it.

The large amount of small prey available, plus the abundance of wild boar, make it seem to me at least plausible that at least a small population of big cats could survive on the island. Large cats tend to require a large territory, but this seems something that isolated adaptation might have been able to overcome.

Whether the cats could survive here and remain hidden from humans is another story, but the island really has to be seen to be believed. I have been there personally and it really is mostly impenetrable jungle. It’s like the lost world over there and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are various undiscovered species there.

Anyway, thank you for your good input and it is good to see I have people thinking about this.

Nice article! If yeti and sasquatch could be real I guess we have to go for this too as a possibiliity. It’s a small area for something like this to go unconfirmed. But as I frequently say: confirmed and frequently observed can be two different things. I would expect more road cross sightings.

As soon as I read: “…and have even been seen to seemingly swing from tree to tree in a manner similar to some kind of primate.”

I thought: clouded leopard, which can be very frisky in trees.

Awesome article with fantastic photographs!

Interbreeding has not been determined to have become a real problem for the cats on Iriomote at this time, although the threat certainly is there. Feral introduced house cats cause a list of problems other than inbreeding, though. For instance, a big concern is that feral house cats harbor feline diseases that they then transfer to the wildcat population. This is an even more immediate and potentially disastrous implication than interbreeding for the endemic wildcats.

Feral house cats can also compete directly for prey. Cats are territorial and house cats are bolder than the native cats, giving them the potential to chase the shyer native wildcats away from their habitats and hunting grounds.

At any rate, the main threat for the endemic Iriomote wildcats at the current time is cars. Development in the cats’ favored coastal hunting areas has led to more roads, and cars are killing them off at an alarming rate. Efforts to stall this trend have met with little success.

Although there is a rather large protected reserve set aside for Iriomote wildcats, it happens to be situated in the uninhabited interior of the island, whereas the wildcats prefer the coastal areas that of course have more development. Since the native wildcats aren’t really hanging out in the wildlife reserve, it is proving to be of little help in protecting these cats.

I wonder if the wildlife reserve, while not doing much for the known native species, might just be harboring something bigger and more mysterious that does favor this more remote domain away from human eyes.