'Island of Cats': Hundreds of cats on Brazilian island; officials unsure to save them

In Brazil's Ilha dos Gatos or the 'Island of the Cats', more than 750 'wild' cats live on the bay of Angra dos Reis, Costa Verde of Rio de Janeiro that have grown into the size of dogs and are feral. The once deserted island has turned into the unnatural habitat for hundreds of felines, that bred out of the few cats that were abandoned by a solitary family in the mid-1950s, as the local myth goes. Brazil's Subsecretariat of Animal Protection and Welfare of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Supan, however, states that the feline population on the island located about 8km from the mainland has been exploding insubstantially, and the Brazilian authorities "do not know" what to do. 

Grown 'too dangerous for humans to visit, this island off Brazil's southeastern coastline has since witnessed gruesome scenes as giant felines devoured corpses during the coronavirus pandemic after the human support and food dried up, The Associated Press reports. Ilha Furtada is an approximately 20 minutes motorboat sail from the city of Mangaratiba, at one extreme end of Brazil's Green Coast, and is generally a vast swath of mountainous lush tropical green forests.

The mysterious island has become a "disposal point" for families that want to abandon their pet cats even as the Brazilian government recognizes it as an "environmental crime" that could mean three months to one year of imprisonment and penalty. The stray cat population on the stranded island was estimated to be 250 in 2012 but recently, these figures have gone upwards.

[Credit: AP]

[Credit: AP]

"These roughly 250 cats on the island trace their origins to a couple who were the only residents some two decades ago," Puchalski, 47, explained to The Associated Press.

"After the family decamped, they left behind the cats to do what most creatures, left to their own devices on a deserted island, would do. And the feline population grew to the repository for an urban scourge: unwanted and stray cats", the Brazilian resident said.

Authorities during the pandemic have explored ways to prohibit people from abandoning the animals on the island, as more challenges piled up to this neglected population of wild, ferocious creatures. All over the island, there are signposts noting of the 'crime' if cats were left straying in the forests. 

Before the pandemic, there were feline shelters built by volunteers from Animal Heart Protectors. An animal protection member in Rio state, Karla de Lucas met with the Navy and environmental authorities in June last year to push Congress to introduce a law that surges the penalties for mistreatment of cats and dogs, including up to 5 years in prison. Lucas told Associated Press that there was limited drinking water, not much source of food for cats but the greatest peril was the venomous 'pit vipers' and dangerous lizards in the forest. 

[Credit: AP]

[Credit: AP]

The activist group Coração Animal's volunteers would treat injured cats put the feed reservoirs and had even set up a rainwater catchment system, according to Brazil's R7 publication. Volunteers also installed the rudimentary food and water dispensers, made from PVC pipes, and made several trips to isolated thick vegetation to restock them.

Cats 'left to their own devices..'

With pandemic gripping Brazil, collapsing healthcare systems, and forcing the country's citizens to quarantine, the cats were left to their own devices and turned into savages in the given condition. The number of volunteer boats fell, fishermen that often tossed fish guts and any unneeded catch onto the island, disappeared. The marooned cats, hundred strong run amok wild, climbing trees to raid birds' nests and hunting prey. A recent visit to the island by The Washington Post has found that the island was now swarming with an unknown number of cats gone — totally feral. 

[Credit: AP]

[Credit: AP]

[Credit: AP]