Appointed caregivers keep UH’s cat population in check

Question: Whatever happened to the feral cat management program run by the Buildings and Grounds Management Office at the University of Hawaii at Manoa?

Answer: The office is now giving its cat caregivers identification cards to distinguish them as authorized to care for the feral cat population at UH-Manoa.

According to Roxanne Adams, director of the buildings and grounds office, the campus has an issue with unauthorized feeders.

"That’s the part that we’re trying to work on now is give our authorized feeders some kind of identification so that when security walks up to a feeder they know if the feeder is authorized or not," she said. "And if the feeder is unauthorized, then they can give them the educational material."

Feeding campus cats without authorization is against university policy.

Repeat offenders could be cited for trespassing.

"For us, we don’t really want cats being fed (unauthorized) on campus but we can’t stop people from feeding … so we want to work with them," Adams said.

The program has been in place for 10 years but wasn’t formalized until about three or four years ago when agreements with the caregivers began. The program was initiated to reduce interaction between the cats and the broader campus community as well as to reduce the cat population, which includes an estimated 200 animals.

According to Adams, many of the cats are about 15 years old and healthy.

The program currently has five authorized caregivers who together have 11 assistants. Authorized caregivers are required to feed the colony he or she oversees in about a dozen feeding stations that have been placed around the campus.

Caregivers also manage the colony’s health, which includes sterilization and vaccinations and conducting a cat census.

Funding to care for the cats comes out of participating caregiver pockets, Adams said, adding that some organizations offer reduced-price or free sterilization services.

CatFriends will spay or neuter campus cats at a CatFriends-sponsored clinic

for $5 each, according to Colleen Okada, the group’s treasurer.

Approximately 95 percent of the UH-Manoa cat population is sterilized, Adams said. When the program finds cats that aren’t, caregivers trap them and make arrangements for clinic visits.

The program is working to move the cats away from high-foot-traffic areas of the campus in part by creating no-feeding zones and combining some colonies.

"So what we’re trying to do is move all of the cat activity to the outside edge of the campus to reduce the interaction between the customer and our cats," Adams said, noting that the shift has occurred gradually over a period of several years.

"You know I’ve been here for 12 years and we’ve actually gotten rid of colonies. Just through attrition and just through movement. So we’ve moved colonies out of high-traffic, centralized areas," Adams said.

There are now no cats on the College of Education and UH-Manoa Children’s Center side of campus, Adams said.

For more information about the program or to apply to be a caregiver, go to manoa.hawaii.edu/landscaping/cats/cats.php.

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This update was written by Noelle Fujii. Suggest a topic for “Whatever Happened To…” by writing Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210, Honolulu 96813; call 529-4747; or email cityeditors@staradvertiser.com.