The pampered residents here were strays in downtown Shanghai, a city with a population of 25 million and somewhere between 400,000 and 1.5 million stray cats. But efforts are underway to stem the city's feral population explosion, and to find homes for at least some of the newly neutered cats.
All Cat Island residents are up for adoption. Many of the city's “cat cafes” do something similar: provide a space where people can befriend and potentially take home a neutered, if shy, cat.
There is no equivalent of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in China. Instead, it's left to grassroots organizations like these to step in to save the cats — from the streets, or from people who think it would be better to cull them.
“Cat adoption has become very popular in recent years, especially among the younger generation,” says Erika Go, owner of More Meow Garden Café dedicated to holistic rescue.
The idea of owning a cat, or dog, as a pet is relatively new in China. With most Chinese only a few generations removed from rural life, many people still view animals as livestock or rat catchers, rather than companions.
But as living standards rose, the outlook on animals changed. Young Chinese people are increasingly sharing their homes with pets – often in lieu of having children – and can regularly be seen walking their cats in clear backpack carriers or leashes.
Now, analysts estimate that there are as many as 51 million pet dogs and 65 million pet cats in urban China. It has generated a massive economy – China's pet industry was worth $44 billion in 2020.
The mainstreaming of pets became acutely evident – often tragically – during the coronavirus lockdowns in 2022, which were particularly long and harsh in Shanghai. When humans were shipped to quarantine centers, their pets were often killed or left to die.
At the end of 2022, just months after Shanghai's longest lockdown ended, a government-affiliated non-profit opened the 130-acre Shanghai Pet Base facility that includes Cat Island.
It focuses on catching and neutering stray animals, then returning them to the communities where they were found. When this is not possible, they are returned to Cat Island.
“This is what we can do here and now,” said Zha Zhenliang, the foundation official in charge of the Cat Island and Pet Base. “Hopefully all [apartment] “The complex could have its own ‘cat island’ for a safe place for the cats, and their feeders could run open,” he said. Feeding feral cats can be a controversial activity, leading to conflict between cat lovers and neighbors who just want them culled.
To adopt a Cat Island cat, people must first go to the remote grassland site outside Shanghai — a semi-rural location chosen to avoid upsetting neighbors — then complete a pet care course and have their home inspected via video call to ensure suitability. The precautions mean adoption numbers hardly mitigate the problem: in 18 months, just 130 cats have gone to new homes.
Houses for various cats in the garden
There are also easily accessible places to interact with the cats, and potentially take them home. Shanghai has seen an explosion in the number of “cat cafes”, where customers can play with some cats and sometimes drink a cup of coffee.
Gu, who set up More Miao Garden — actually an office with vertical climbing shelves and sleeping shelves for cats — in downtown Shanghai five years ago, said her café was populated entirely with rescued stray cats.
“The cat café is not only a place for cats and humans to play together, but it also provides an opportunity for potential adopters to fully connect with the cats and help them understand if they really want to choose a companion animal to join their family,” he says. Joe, who rehomes one cat a month, has a total of 64 so far.
There's a major hurdle to increasing that number: Many status-conscious Shanghainese want cats they can show off on social media — they buy or adopt purebreds, not the park-varied breeds offered by Cat Island and More Meow. “The average person here sees a cat and thinks, is it worth the money or not, is it clean or not, when in reality the only difference is the condition of the cats,” says Cha. “So we need to manage people more than cats.”
Independent rescuers and informal organizations do the lion's share of caring for street animals in Shanghai, from neighborhood-by-neighborhood collaborations to feed stray animals to about 50 formal rescue groups.
“I estimate there are hundreds of private shelters, large and small, in Shanghai,” says Angelica Ma, founder of private shelters in western Shanghai. (Niko is the Japanese word for cat.) “The problem is that these farms are often run by poor elderly people who lack the ability to provide stable shelter and find a home for the animals,” Ma says.
Some independent rescue organizations target specific niches, but most focus on the absurd task of finding homes for animals. Groups like the one running Adoption Day in Shanghai take rescue cats to public places like malls to try to find them new homes, while online adoption platforms resemble dating apps, with pet personalities and glamorous shots.
Zoro's dramatic death
While many people who feed stray cats in complexes and parks do so under the cover of night, a particularly organized effort has emerged at the Jing'an Sculpture Park in the city centre. More than 130 cat lovers coordinate feeding bouts and crowdfund food and medical care for the park's cats. They also try to find homes for friendlier kittens.
The park has about 100 cats, volunteer Bon Win estimates, and the group has neutered more than 90 of them.
The park's management tacitly approved of their efforts, but was forced to take a more active role after the killing last May of Zorro, a black-and-white “cow” cat who had become famous on social media. Zorro's fans set up a candlelight shrine where his body was found.
There were other killings and mutilations as well. “There's no good way to stop people from hurting cats,” says Wayne. “We all have to go to work and live our own lives. It's impossible for me to stand guard in the park 24 hours a day.
Zorro's death, coupled with the growing market for animal torture videos, sparked nationwide social media outrage and renewed calls for an animal protection law. China has no laws against animal cruelty or abandonment, and current agricultural laws only prohibit the sale of stray dogs to slaughterhouses, not their misuse for recreational purposes. Netizens and some lawmakers have suggested expanding wildlife protection to include pets.
But as society changes, Cha sees an animal protection law as necessary. “Without a protection law, we must establish a social standard that isolates and blacklists animal abusers,” Cha said.
Stopping strays from living nine (or more) lives.
Attitudes are changing, but very slowly, says Ma Nicholter. There is a need for education about caring for animals as pets, as well as punishment for people who abandon animals. Then the authorities must address the over-breeding of purebred cats and dogs. “They have to start trying to get to the root of the problem.”
As efforts to rehome neutered cats continue slowly, the main efforts of animal advocates are focusing on desexing stray cats in Shanghai to reduce their population. The trap-neuter-release program is central to this effort, and one of the heroes of the action is Yin Xiaojun, the famous cat trapper known as Stone.
Yin, a business manager by day, is called in almost every night to retrieve pets from roofs, kittens stuck in drains and convince unenthusiastic ferals to take a trip to the vet.
Yin says he has captured more than 4,000 animals a year for the past five years, almost all of them so they can be neutered. “Hunting is the most primitive male skill, it is natural, and the thrill of a successful hunt is addictive,” he says.
Once caught, catatonic cats quickly calm down in preparation for a trip to the vet for desexing surgery. After several days of recovery, the kittens return to the bag or cage for the trip home, now having their ears drilled for future identification. One down, another million to go.
