norman-uk- I’m not surprised that you’ve never heard of these cats. A lot of people who actually live on the island haven’t even heard of them. Some people even think they are just stray house cats. Needless to say, this low awareness among the populace doesn’t help conservation efforts.

As to your remark about the two types of cat being different, I’m not clear on what you mean there. If you mean the Tsushima cats and Iriomote cats, then the answer is yes they are different. The Tsushima cats mentioned here are a subspecies of Asian leopard cat and the Iriomote wildcat is regarded as a separate, though related, species. Some have even gone so far as to propose that the Iriomote cat be a separate genus. If you mean the differences between Tsushima cats on the upper and lower island, then they are the same. The geographic barrier of waterways is man made, and so the cats have not been isolated anywhere near long enough for them to have started any process speciating.

About roads. Road kills are a problem for several reasons. First of all, people just simply don’t think about the cats. There is a general low awareness among locals about the Tsushima leopard cat’s plight, and so they are no more careful than they would be about hitting a stray house cat. In many cases, even when they hit one they tend to think it was just a house cat and don’t really freak out too much about it.

In addition, the roads tend to be built through areas that happen to be some of the cats’ favorite haunts. The cats roam a lot, and therefore find it hard to avoid the roads that are cut right through their territory. The road problem is likely going to get worse. There are increasing numbers of new residents as well as tourists on the island, and more people means more roads being built.

There have been several measures taken to try and combat the road deaths threatening these wildcats. One such measure involves putting down “rumble strips,” which are basically bumpy strips on the pavement that vibrate your car when it drives over them. The idea is that these will have a dual effect; to alert the driver that they should slow down, and to create a noise that will hopefully startle the cats and make them get out of the way faster. There have also been attempts to build tunnels under the roads for the cats to use, but it is unclear how effective these have been. So far measures such as these have seemed to fail to significantly lower the amount of Tsushima leopard cat deaths due to road kill.

Another threat the cats face is house cats. The house cats directly compete for food with the leopard cats, and they can pass feline diseases onto them as well. Feline transmittable diseases have actually turned out to be a major worry n recent years for both the Tsushima cats and Iriomote cats. Dogs pose a risk as well, but they are not as numerous on the islands.

Other efforts have been made to protect the cats. For instance they were designated a Living National Monument in 1971, and in 1994 (too late if you ask me) they were made an endangered species. There has been a government funded recovery program put into place as well.

There is also a huge national park on the island, where development is banned, but it is not as easy saying because the animals are small they must be easy to accommodate. The problem is that the cats just don’t seem to want to stay in the park. They wander all over the place, including populated areas where, you guessed it, they cross roads.

A similar problem exists on Iriomote Island, where the quite generously sized national park there is located in the island’s interior, whereas the Iriomote cats prefer the habitat of low lying coastal areas where all of the people and development are. There is not much the government can do in either case since the residents want to develop the land and don’t generally care much about what happens to the cats. It is difficult to expand the parks, and the only way to make sure the cats were totally safe would be to have the parks encompass the whole island including populated areas, which would defeat the purpose.

Captive breeding programs are being attempted as well, but all in all conservation efforts to save the cats on both islands have proved to be pretty tricky and not particularly effective as of yet.

gkingdano- As for the numbers, that figure of around 100 individuals is of course the population figure after subtracting the number of road kills. Yeah, it’s that bad. At this rate of several Tsushima cat road kills a year, even accounting for reproductive rates, things just don’t look good for the cats in the coming decades. And as I said before, the numbers of roads are only increasing.

The cats on the lower island, where this one was found, face even greater pressure since development is heavier there.

Hope this has helped.

Are you aware of any reason other than the obvious why there are such a high relative number of road kills and could any remedial action be taken?

I do not think you mentioned any cat reserves, but the animal being small could be more easily accommodated by this means. Even though it possibly punches above its weight and there could be a clash with keepers of large game birds like the pheasants.