Meet Sakae Kato, a 57 year old man who has spent the past decade in Fukushima’s contaminated zone caring for abandoned cats. In the wake of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, the area was evacuated, but Sakae refused to leave.
After years of running his small construction company, he was haunted by the number of dead pets he found in the abandoned homes he helped demolish. Ignoring evacuation orders, Sakae converted his dilapidated two-storey cabin into a shelter for cats abandoned during the mass exodus, and made it his mission to care for them, especially those that became infected with the feline leukaemia virus. Over the past ten years Sakae has buried 23 cats in his garden and currently looks after 41 cats and a rescue dog named Pochi.
With no running water or electricity, Sakae collects water in bottles from a nearby mountain stream, uses a paraffin stove for heating, and drives to public toilets. Although his house is falling apart, Sakae spends around $7,000 a month feeding not only his cats but the wild boars that gather around his house every evening. He recently got in trouble with the government for allegedly freeing a wild boar that had become caught in a trap.
Sakae says the cats give him a reason to stay on the land that has been in his family for generations. Despite his family’s disapproval, he believes his life’s purpose is to care for these animals, who he calls his ‘kids,’ and he refuses to leave until the last cat dies. “If humans have trouble making a living, society will take care of them, and provide them social aid. If these kids are in trouble who will take care of them?"
