I am an annual visitor to your wonderful island. I first visited Kauai in 1989 and fell in love with Old Koloa Town and Poipu. I returned with my 18-month-old daughter in 2000 and we have been coming back ever
I am an annual visitor to your wonderful island. I first visited Kauai in 1989 and fell in love with Old Koloa Town and Poipu. I returned with my 18-month-old daughter in 2000 and we have been coming back ever since.
On a recent visit earlier in March, we both experienced and read about the feral cats on the island. I wanted to highlight for residents and visitors alike a wonderful organization we connected with while on the island which is working to help stabilize the feral cat population.
On our recent visit to Kiahuna Plantation, we were greeted at the registration house by a very friendly and sweet feral kitten that seemed to have an infected eye. On our third night on the island, we visited Clayworks Pottery and they recommended I call Paradise Animal Clinic for vet advice.
The people there told me about Sue Scott who runs Kauai Community Cat Project, which is a network of people working on the island and looking out for the feral cats.
They are a nonprofit and with their funding, they use humane cat traps to bring cats to volunteer vets for care, to spay and neuter cats, to make sure they stay healthy, to feed them cat food, to find them adoptive homes if they are friendly, and to make sure they live healthy lives and will not endanger anyone or anything on the island.
This organization is an asset to the island. Sue put me in touch with the person who helps on the South Shore who came over and immediately helped the calico kitten with antibiotics. She is now being treated for an upper respiratory infection and her eye is open again and clear. She will be spayed; my family and I are helping pay for her care.
As a visitor, I am happy to support this cat, this organization and your island to make sure Kauai stays safe, natural and beautiful for animals and people living and visiting there. I hope the feral cats that are already living on the island can be spayed or neutered and cared for, so they can live peacefully without having more kittens and the cat population on the island can stabilize and not be an issue for other residents.
Supporting organizations like the Kauai Community Cat Project who humanely care for the cats is a great step forward.
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Mathilde (Tilda) Brown Swanson is a resident of Des Moines, Iowa.
