JAKARTA: Fancy visiting an idyllic island in the Java Sea that is home to 1,000 rescue cats?
Indonesia could soon have a “cat island” modelled after the ones in Japan, if Jakarta governor Pramono Anung has his way.
On May 15, Pramono revealed that the city government is considering populating one of the hundreds of islands off the coast of Jakarta with cats in an effort to manage their population and boost tourism.
“The idea about a cat island is not new. Japan has established ones and they have become extraordinary tourist destinations,” the governor told reporters, as quoted by Indonesian news portal Tempo.
On islands such as Aoshima and Tashirojima in Japan, cats vastly outnumber human inhabitants after they were brought in to control the rat population. The presence of these four-legged creatures have put these islands on the map, attracting cat lovers and curious visitors from around the world.
“If we can make it happen, the island can be a source of revenue (for Jakarta),” Pramono said, without providing a timeline.
The governor said ever since he took office in February, keeping Jakarta’s cat population in check has been one of the top demands made by residents. After discussing with several experts, the idea to build a cat island was born.
According to a 2024 estimate by the city government, Jakarta is home to 750,000 stray and 110,000 domesticated cats.
With cats capable of producing three to four litters of kittens a year, experts predict the figure could quadruple in the next five years, heightening the risk of disease transmission, human-animal conflicts and ecological imbalance.
Jakarta has the manpower and budget to only sterilise around 20,000 cats – feral or domesticated – every year, so finding spaces big enough to shelter the rescued animals in a sprawling metropolis of 11 million people is also a challenge.
This is one of the reasons the city is turning its attention to the Thousand Islands, a chain of islands which stretches up to 160km northwest from Jakarta’s mainland.
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