Ka Leo O Hawaii

Issue date: 4/28/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Courtesy of Metro Creative Graphics Complaints about the 200 to 500 feral cats on campus have resulted in a plan to distribute over 20 boxes with food and cat litter to help track and manage the colonies. [Click to enlarge]

Media Credit: Rachel Manuel The UH Cat Care group said these boxes, created and funded by the campus wood shop, will keep cat waste confined to one area and improve the overall health and safety of the UH Mānoa campus. [Click to enlarge]

Members of UH Cat Care have followed the example of other major universities in hopes of better managing the cat colonies on the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa campus by putting out feeders and litter boxes for the cats.

The group is an informal operation of about 20 people, brought together by David Hafner, assistant vice chancellor for campus services. The group is made up of colony managers and feeders who are UH faculty and staff, students and local community members.

"The goal of the cat care group is to identify cat colonies and register them so we know where they are," Hafner said.

These kitty crusaders are organizing themselves to create an official UH registered independent organization. Their responsibilities will include managing the various colonies and keeping track of the number of cats, properly feeding the cats and having them spayed and neutered.

According to Hafner, UH Mānoa Facilities received complaints over the years about the cats on campus and the lack of a program to deal with them. So at the end of last year, the department began identifying standard procedures for managing the colonies and meeting with cat caretakers to discuss the problems and handle the complaints.

Hafner estimates that there are about 20 colonies on campus with 200 to 500 cats total, but numbers may vary. This is important, he said, because the extensive construction on campus could put many colonies under environmental stress.

The facilities department decided to follow the trap-neuter-release program, which was successful in downsizing a colony at the UH Lab School within a few years. Managing cat populations is a lengthy and delicate process since it can take two to three years to reduce a colony's size if no new cats are introduced to it. Hawai‘i Cat Friends, a nonprofit volunteer organization, provides the UH caretakers free spay-neuter services at least once a month for the cats.

The group has followed in the footsteps of other universities, like the Stanford Cat Network of Stanford University and the Friends of Feral Cats of the University of Washington, by scattering feeders and litter boxes around campus for the cats. Colleen Okada, a colony manager, said there are many established groups because it is very common for cats to be attracted to campuses, where they can easily find food and shelter.

The boxes, which are 2 feet wide, 2 feet long and 2 feet deep, are made by the UH wood shop and will be implemented in sets of a feeder and a litter box. With one set finished and in place, 20 more boxes are to be painted, sealed and set by the end of the semester.

The boxes are funded out of the general shop fund and the food is provided by volunteers.

David Karl of the department of oceanography said that the proposed solution of using the boxes is a proven technology at other major universities. The Stanford Cat Network began in 1989 with about 1,500 cats on campus. Now there are about 200 cats.

Litter boxes help keep the waste confined to one location and minimize the possibility of health and safety problems.

"People don't step on it and don't complain as much," Karl said, adding that this probably was not much of a problem in the first place because cats tend to bury their poop. The poop around campus, then, is probably from dogs or mongooses.

The feeders also help the group keep track of where the cats are and whether they need any medicine.

"If there's a feeding station, it's like a restaurant," Karl said. "The cats know where to go to eat."

UH undergraduate Neslei Garcia says that having the boxes will be convenient and helpful for the cats and that if it were not for the cats on campus, "there'd be other rodents running around, eating food."

Junior Kimberly Ikemori said that the cats should not be fed because it will encourage them to multiply; instead, they should be taken to the Humane Society. "They don't belong to anybody. They don't get adequate care. They don't belong to UH," she said.

Okada said that leaving existing colonies to defend their territories is widely recommended. "This keeps other cats away and is, in itself, a manner of population control," she said.

A colony's size will not exponentially increase since the cats have been fixed. Instead it will decrease over time as the cats die of natural causes, Okada said. "While there are those who advocate killing or removing the cats, this method has been shown to be unsuccessful," since removing the present cats would only provide the opportunity for more feral colonies to move in. This is known as the "vacuum effect."

As the group identifies the various cat colonies on campus, Okada said that each area will need to be assessed and the best method of managing waste to be determined. Okada has eight indoor cats and seven litter boxes, which she scoops out twice a day, amounting to a few pounds daily.

"Now, imagine a colony of 40 cats," she said. "That's going to be a lot of litter boxes, not to mention cat waste."

Hafner said this method is an experiment to determine the best way to handle cats and their waste. The group will test the box model, the paint used and placement of the boxes so they can make modifications. From the first trial, the group has observed they might need to change the paint and make the boxes waterproof with shingles on the roof.

Hafner said that if the trap-neuter-release program doesn't control the cat population, they might have to go with the trap-remove program of having cats exterminated. "I'm confident the program will do everything it can to make it a success," he said.

The program will be reevaluated at the end of the summer term.

If you are interested in becoming involved with the group by feeding, trapping, or providing foster care for cats, please contact Colleen Okada at colleeno@hawaii.rr.com.

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