The impact of Hawaiʻi Island’s feral cat colonies on the endangered nēnē population has been a hot topic recently. After our interview with Jordan Lerma of nene.org last week, we received several emails from listeners.
Elaine from Pāhoa wrote, "All of the hoopla over nene dying by droves from toxoplasmosis spread by feral cats is misplaced and incorrect. In a study conducted over 22 years of examining 300 dead nene, the most common cause of death was starvation, the second most was trauma, which includes strikes by cars and predation by mongoose, rats, pigs, dogs, and cats. The third is infection, of which toxoplasmosis is the most common, but also includes about 20 other diseases."
"The public outrage should be directed at DLNR and the Parks Department for not addressing starving geese and stretches of road where most are hit by cars," Elaine continued.
Dana from the Big Island echoed those thoughts and added, "I just drove over the Saddle Road to Kona last week and the slaughter of nene on that road is horrific. Humans, cars and many other factors are causing the death of nene and many other native Hawaiian species."
"To target cats, when there are solutions for cats that don’t involve euthanasia, is one-sided. An island-wide education program so owned cats and dogs could be fixed would be major. Hawaii lags behind the entire mainland on fixing cats and dogs in a major way. Barriers along Saddle Road would be good, too. Keep the nene and goats off the roads," Dana continued.
The Conversation reached out to the Kona-based nonprofit Aloha Animal Oasis. Its goal is to humanely reduce the number of feral cats on the Big Island.
Relocating cat colonies away from native bird habitats and coastal areas is part of its mission. The Conversation sat down with co-founder John Hopf.
"I do know that, you know, the feral cat problem is something that needs to be controlled. There's been some efforts on the island for years. The real only humane way to do it is through spay and neuter, and to try to control the population through cutting off the reproductive cycle," Hopf said.
He said there are probably 4,000 to 5,000 cats spayed or neutered on the Big Island each year, but that could be ramped up to 20,000 or 30,000.
"We don't want to just, you know, kill one species to protect another species, especially because humans caused this problem. We feel like we want to come up with a solution and not just penalize the cats because they were reproducing. I think that's the biggest thing I'd like to convey is that cat people, we don't want feral cats, but we don't want them treated unfairly and humanely."
This interview aired on The Conversation on May 24, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
