HILO — Hawaii County garbage transfer stations are going to the dogs. But especially the cats. Not to mention the pigs, the goats and the chickens.
County officials are trying to get a handle on a feral animal proliferation problem by pushing, in the case of cats, a catch, spay-or-neuter and release program and urging people not to dump or feed animals at the transfer stations.
“People abandon their pets at the transfer stations as if they’re garbage,” said Puna Councilwoman Eileen O’Hara, who’s been working on legislation to put some teeth into the county code.
She said there are more than 100 feral cats at the Keaau transfer station alone, and it’s not the only transfer station with problems. Feral cats also remain a problem at the Kealakehe Wastewater Treatment Plant, a nesting ground for threatened and endangered seabirds.
O’Hara’s first attempted solution was to allocate some of the $215,000 that’s slated for spay and neuter programs annually in the county’s $2.1 million animal control program to various animal welfare nonprofits to increase animal sterilization countywide. That effort proved unsuccessful.
Her newest effort, Bill 192, will require the county to control “nuisance factors” such as plant species, feral cats, dogs and pigs that affect environmental and human health at facilities controlled by the Department of Environmental Management.
The bill requires the department to establish best practices for a comprehensive quality control program at transfer stations as well as wastewater treatment facilities.
The County Council Environmental Management Committee is scheduled to have the bill on its Nov. 1 agenda. On a favorable ruling from the committee, the bill goes to the county Environmental Management Commission for its consideration and recommendation before being heard twice more at the council level.
Environmental Management Director Bill Kucharski said the department already uses best practices. The bill, he said, will make the procedures more formal. The bill also requires the director to allocate sufficient resources to effectively develop the project.
“There are people that very much love cats and try to take care of them,” Kucharski said. “We’re trying to find a different way to manage the feral cat population.”
Aha! Finally a single story that encapsulates the reason why TNR is both ineffective and hypocritical. See, the people who feed the feral cats don’t really care about all animals – only the cats. They’re not advocating to spay and neuter the feral pigs or feral goats – they could care less. But they’re happy to spend $200,000 on TNR just to see it doesn’t work in Hawaii. But wait you say, the feral pigs don’t carry toxoplasmosis that kill our rare monk seals, and the feral goats don’t feast on endangered sea birds- only the feral cats do this. So yeah, we’re wasting all this taxpayer money just because a small handful of people want to preserve these invasive species, these spreaders of diseases and these unwanted pests that destroy our ecosystem. When will this foolishness end?
Uncleaina, you’re absolutely right that these cat loving nutcases with tunnel vision only see cats as some priviledged animals, while in actuality is one of the most destructive animals that threaten endangered birds, seals, humans including the ecosystem of rare plants since some only grow in Hawaii and the endangered birds that pollenate them.
So in essence these cat loving nutcases who support these useless feral cats are also the ones who directly endanger these Hawaiian plants and animals.
I have no problem running over cats that run into the roads and actually enjoy taking one out that won’t threaten these animals. There should be some “shoot a cat day” held on the weekends to thin out these wild cats whose corpses would be a welcomed fertilizer to our native forests.
As for the nutcases, they should be arrested and thrown in some mental institution for human research and also be subjected to the nueter program complete with electrical shock treatments.
So, you guys don’t support TNR.
And you don’t support people volunteering to TNR.
And your contribution to all this is to complain, while others are trying to do something about the problem.
The cats did not ask to be born. They did not swim here. The root cause is worthless owners, and a culture that does not educate its people how cats produce.
Spot on comments but to take it further – NO catch and release. Catch and euthanize. The focus here is INDIGENOUS animals. And the people abusing these animals by throwing them to the curb should also be sterilized so they can’t procreate their stupidity.
There is absolutely no shortage of scientific data about the threats posed by feral cats to native wildlife, and also to humans, from cat scratch fever to toxoplasmosis. Now, if these people who love feral cats want to do what is right, then they would set up secure enclosures and collect the cats and keep them there where they will be vetted and be fed and not be out killing native species OR transmitting diseases to wildlife. Now, consider just how quickly officials and the public would be taking action if wild dogs were running about attacking farm animals and even people??? Cats are doing a tremendous amount of damage and this needs to be addressed both by officials and by the public. It is wrong.