Cats on Japan's famed "Cat Island" are deliberately being poisoned, it is feared.
The feline population on remote Umashima island, 10 kilometres off Kitakyushu, has mysteriously fallen from 90 in 2014 to 30 this year.
The cause is unknown but eyewitnesses point to food left for the animals which appeared to be laced with a blue substance, the Japan national daily paper Mainichi Shimbun reported.
Reports said once healthy cats were seen foaming at the mouth and collapsing. The cats had become a tourist attraction at the sparsely populated island in recent years.
